The library will “ease the burden on the doctors by providing real-time diagnosis and a faster path to recovery for their patients,” Hancock said in his message.
The medical library was officially opened yesterday by Public Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez, medical practitioners, health workers, nursing students and CHC staff.
CHC, Villagomez said, will make sure that its medical library will continue to grow.
Berlinda Quitano is CHC’s medical librarian.
Villagomez encouraged medical practitioners and health workers to inform CHC about the other materials needed by the library.
Arlene Cohen, Pacific Islands library consultant, said new medical libraries are rapidly populating the hospitals in Micronesia.
Two weeks ago, she said, they opened the Pohnpei State Medical Library in Kolonia.
Cohen said two generous grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are providing funding to establish or rebuild nine hospital medical libraries in the U.S.-affiliated Pacific islands.
This endeavor began in 2007 when the foundation awarded the Ayuda Foundation on Guam a $49,000 year-long grant to support the rebuilding of the Yap State Hospital Durand Medical Library, which was destroyed by a typhoon in 2004.
In early Aug. 2009, Cohen said Alice Hadley, the U.S. Naval Hospital Guam medical librarian, traveled to Saipan to establish the CHC medical library.
John Aldan, Northern Marianas College instructor, said the medical library will help his nursing students in their research work.
“This is very beneficial even to the off-island medical personnel or students who will come here to do research,” he said.
NMC may not have enough medical materials but the CHC medical library can now assist the needs of the students, he added.
