This was revealed by CHC quality management coordinator Karen Buettner during Friday’s public hearing in the Senate chamber.
Sen. Ralph DLG. Torres, R-Saipan and chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare, conducted the hearing to address the lack of laboratory supplies that prompted acting Gov. Eloy S. Inos to declare a state of emergency at CHC.
Aside from senators, members of the House of Representatives also attended the hearing and asked questions.
Appearing on behalf of the administration and the Department of Public Health were Finance Secretary Larrisa Larson, medical referral director Ronald Sablan, Division of Public Health Deputy Secretary John Iguel, hospital administration deputy secretary Warren Villagomez, Public Health technical financial analyst Cora Ada and acting Public Health Secretary Esther Muna.
Muna, Buettner and Larson fielded most of the lawmakers’ questions.
The absence of Public Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez irked some lawmakers.
Sen. Jovita M. Taimanao, Ind.-Rota, said she found it “disturbing” that in this time of crisis, Villagomez could still afford to go on an off-island trip.
She said it was not the first time that important Public Health officials were off-island during a public hearing.
Muna said it was the failure to pay vendors that caused them to run out of 22 reagents used in the diagnostic tests of patients especially those in the emergency room.
“We don’t have the money. That is the bottom line,” she told lawmakers in response to the question of Rep. Fredrick P. Deleon Guerrero, Ind.-Saipan.
She disclosed that the hospital has $2.9 million unpaid bills, excluding the $1.8 million medical referral costs due, Sablan said, on June 22.
Sablan said they sometimes had to cancel medical referral trips due to lack of money for plane tickets.
He noted at the same time a “drastic” 60 percent drop in medical referrals.
Muna said Public Health has been working with Finance to pay the vendors, “hopefully [this] week.”
“I brought Buettner here to explain the situation with the hospitals’ laboratory,” Muna told lawmakers.
Buettner said when she figured out they were running out of reagents she went to the emergency room early last week and listed all the test chemicals they lacked.
“Without these tests, we’re guessing,” she said referring to the condition of their incoming ER patients.
The lack of supplies, she said, affects newborn babies, heart attack and dialysis patients.
“For the newborn babies, if we don’t have these tests, we need to do invasive procedures,” Buettner said.
As for the cardiac arrest patients, she said attending physicians cannot figure out if one is really having a heart attack without these reagents.
Senate President Paul A. Manglona, Ind.-Rota, said this may be the reason that some patients and their families had to pay $3,000 for heart attack medicine although they might not be having a heart attack.
Buettner said they need the test to get a definite diagnosis. Without it, she does not think they can say 100 percent that a patient is having a heart attack.
She said they also lack creatinine, a reagent used in determining kidney function for dialysis patients and those who need CT scan testing.
Buettner told the lawmakers that it was not that their technician were not able to do the tests. “We just don’t have the reagents.
Muna said they owe Diagnostic Laboratory Services over $900,000 and another vendor, $230,000. She did not disclose the other vendor’s identity.
Diagnostic Laboratory Services, she added, asked for at least $100,000 so it can continue providing CHC with reagents.
Manglona asked if Finance could call the vendor right away and promise to pay at least $250,000.
Muna said there was no money to pay vendors.
Vice Speaker Felicidad T. Ogumoro, Covenant-Saipan, asked Larson if there was money that could be reprogrammed immediately.
Larson said there was not enough money to reprogram.
But she said she will work closely with Muna to see which reagents need to be bought immediately.
The administration said it was considering “tapping” $1 million in Commonwealth Development Authority funds.
