At the time, I was collaborating with partners in Hawaii to install a telemedicine network for the entire Pacific Basin. Years prior, the Weinberg Foundation of Hawaii donated several million dollars worth of telemedicine/teleconferencing equipment to each and every hospital/clinic in the state. These equipment sat in boxes for many, many months because none of the hospitals/clinics wanted them or knew how to use them.
Most importantly, the lack of specialized medical care in the islands (Oahu had 67 orthopedic surgeons and Guam had 1, CNMI had none, Belau had none, etc.) forced the insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid to pay millions of dollars for off-island referrals. In 2004 alone, the people of Guam and the CNMI paid over $42 million for such incidentals. With a telemedicine network in place, these cost could be drastically reduced to a quarter.
I am pleased that someone is NOW serious about this issue. Of course, I would have been exulted to have our network in place. But the lack of support from the island governments and the medical communities led to this prolong and wasted timetable. Notwithstanding, my cohorts and I are happy to have pioneered this endeavor.
I remembered when I first introduced the “Taotaomona Chant Line” to the islands. The snickers and jeers coming from the general population were overwhelming. I remembered the loud humor coming from K57 and KUAM that I was somehow C-R-A-Z-Y. Well I left the islands in 1998 and renamed and refined the system as “The Ancient Healing Chants.” Now…it is probably the most visited and most used Web site: http://yuos.tripod.com
I remember the np2000 Chamoru Language Program. I remembered designing the “Chamori version” of the Mortal Combat Computer Game and how I made the fighters speak “Chamoru.” They would utter “Hu Yamak Hao” — “Hu Puno’ Hao.” I envisioned that if it was distributed worldwide, the Chinese kids in Shanghai and the German Kids in Munich will all be speaking Chamoru. Well I left the islands in 1998, re-designed the Language program to showcase 50-Plus Language Network called the Native Tongue Language Series…“Taotaomona Network.” http://taotaomona.net
With the advent of the Palm Pilot and the PC phones, folks can now visit Japan, dial into the Taotaomona Network and converse in Japanese.
As a retired telecom engineer with AT&T, I walked the entire technology gamut…from the vacuum tube to the transistor to the microchip; from the telegraph, to the ringer phone to the video phones; from the snail mail to the e-mail. Believe it or not, the ultimate communications medium has to be mind-to-mind communications or mental telepathy. And for the past 20 years, I have been deeply engrossed in just such a research program. So there. Snicker and jeer all you want. Thank You Guam! Your snickers and jeers made me all that determined to succeed.
Hu Guaiya Hamyu Manelo-hu.
NORBERT & GRACIELA PEREZ
Panama City, Panama
P.S. My Dad once told me that the Chamori people reminded him of the “crabs in the bucket” syndrome. Every time a crab tried to escape by climbing the sides of the bucket, another crab would jump on its back and bring him down.
