“Other available spaces at CHC will soon be occupied by other doctors. CHC and the CNMI can no longer afford to practice government medicine as it is now,” explained Dr. Larry Hocog in an e-mail to the Variety.
Hocog is operating a private clinic at CHC because “renting spaces [there] is not new.”
Department of Public Health acting Secretary Pedro Untalan said there is nothing illegal with Hocog’s operating a private clinic at CHC.
“We [first] invited the participation of the private practitioners in the delivery of health services in 2007,” Untalan said in an interview with the Variety.
Currently, Hocog is leasing CHC’s “unoccupied excess capacity” for his clinic.
Untalan said everything is aboveboard.
“I have nothing to hide,” he added.
Asked if CHC’s operation or public health services are being privatized, Untalan said their approach is to invite the private medical industry’s participation in the delivery of health services.
In his e-mail to the Variety, Hocog noted that “PHI Pharmacy has been renting and operating a for profit business inside CHC for more than 13 years now.”
Hocog said another doctor “has been using CHC facilities and operating spaces free of charge for more than 15 years. He…provides necessary services for the community.”
Due to the absence of physicians at CHC’s adult clinic, Hocog said “[he] was tending to patients’ needs without the benefit of a paycheck.”
“I contributed voluntary time for a period of three weeks without any pay,” Hocog added.
