When told about these patients, the acting public health secretary recalled the “standard” explanation for CHC’s lack of doctors. Anesthesiologists on Guam, he pointed out, are paid much more.
These are tired reasons, offered by administrators lacking the proper experience and credentials to do the job they are appointed to do. Doctors are leaving the hospital in droves and it has very little to do with salaries. It has to do with the inhospitable working environment, poor management practices at the very top, and a propensity to accept worn out excuses as the justification for never changing a thing.
But CHC is not alone.
Not a single resident on island believes the many reasons that CUC offers for water or power outages. High salinity in the water wells, laying new pipeline, fixing a leak, changing the chlorinator pipe, drought conditions — these don’t explain why huge leaks go unattended for days, and sometimes nearly a whole week. These are gushers on main roads not trickles of water in a remote area. This partly explains why the water shortage is critical in so many places on island. The other explanation is not enough equipment, no maintenance, and no money for upgrades.
Government officials, in any case, have an obligation to tell the public the truth. Of course, spokespersons can be expected to put a positive spin on a bad story, but there must be a kernel of truth in their representations. The public has the right to know, for example, what hours the emergency room is manned by ER doctors. The public also has the right to know the real reasons for the annual migration of physicians from CHC.
The people expect that a visit to the hospital will yield proper medical treatment and not healthcare truncated by severe and chronic lack of hospital equipment, medical supplies and professionals.
There are, to be sure, good people and great employees at all these agencies, but their ability to deliver good service is affected by management problems at the top — and this is a familiar story, not exclusive to this administration.
By the way, who do you think should be held responsible for the dialysis center fiasco?
Swift and terrible
IT’S time for current government employees and their families to consider just what would happen if the court were to order the payment of the 37 percent that the Retirement Fund is asking for. In practical terms it would mean the bankruptcy of this government and the immediate furlough of hundreds if not thousands of its employees. The impact would be swift and terrible.
Real austerity measures will be imposed. The budget will be reduced. Taxes cannot be raised in this recessionary period with so many variables unknown, like the price of energy in the future, but they will be raised and more businesses will close, more job losses will result and government revenues will fall back even lower. A large number of people in the commonwealth live below the poverty line, and they would be the first to lose their jobs.
Some believe that this scenario will not be allowed by the judge. But the judge’s distaste for the way the CNMI’s elected officials have ruined the government is well known to those without short-term memory loss. And although the court is unlikely to order a one-time payment of the government’s obligations, it is expected to mandate a 37 percent rate. Which will result in…well, see above.
Meanwhile, the current government employees whose continued employment now depends on the court ruling would like to know how much is the Retirement Fund paying its legal counsel to pursue this lawsuit, and whether the board chairman doesn’t see any conflict of interest at all in this arrangement with the wife of his running mate.
