“There is going to be a big impact on the healthcare if visas will not be given to our nurses to let them stay,” Public Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez said.
But he is confident that the federal government will let the health professionals stay.
He said over 70 percent of the 235 nurses at the Commonwealth Health Center are from the Philippines.
“We already went on dialogues with U.S. immigration offices seeking potential avenues for us to retain our nurses, whether though the issuance of CNMI work visas or other methods just to let them work here, but I have good faith we will come to an agreement,” Villagomez said.
The CNMI health care system will “collapse” without the nurses and professionals who are not U.S. citizens, he added.
The implementation of the federalization law will start on Nov. 28.
Villagomez at the same time said the new hemodialysis facility may finally be opened in the next couple of weeks.
He said that they are just waiting for the Medicare application to be certified.
“We put out the application several weeks ago. Normally, Medicare responds immediately, and we have already taken care of the issues that Medicare required us to address,” he said.
Villagomez said last week, new hemodialysis machines had arrived.
“We will move the equipment to the new hemodialysis facility as soon as it will be open,” he said.
According to Villagomez, the opening of the new hemodialysis facility will reduce the number of shifts to two each day.
“Right now we have four shifts but reducing this by half would mean saving money because we won’t have to get more staff for overtime work,” he added.
He said the reported flaws in the new facility’s design will not affect the opening of the hemodialysis clinic.
He refused to comment further on it due to the undergoing litigation.
