In an interview during the unveiling of the mobile clinic last week, Public Health’s deputy secretary for hospital administration, Pete Untalan, said in addition to one anesthesiologist CHC already has, they will have another one who will start working full-time next month.
This anesthesiologist, he said worked for hospital for about a month, left the island two weeks ago but will be coming back on Jan. 12.
According to Untalan, they are also in the process of recruiting a third anesthesiologist.
The hospital will have its emergency room fully staffed by hiring more doctors, he said, one of whom will be coming from Canada to work here on rotating basis.
“They’re doing fine in the emergency room,” he added. “We have four physicians in there and will have another physician on a rotating basis until we start stabilizing the recruitment process.”
Untalan acknowledges the support of Gov. Benigno R. Fitial and Finance Secretary Eloy Inos in increasing the salaries of “very-hard-to-fill” positions in the hospital like surgeons, anesthesiologists and emergency room doctors.
The other hospital departments have enough medical staffers but Untalan said “we have to understand we’re going through some rough times and we need to be competitive in our recruitment.”
