“I am very concerned with the Tinian Health Center,” he added.
Tinian does not have sufficient midlevel providers and supplies to meet the medical needs on island, he added.
“The sad thing is Tinian has not been accommodated in the emergency declaration,” he said, referring to the governor’s state of emergency declaration so the government could pay some of the unpaid vendors of the Commonwealth Health Center.
“We are not getting positive response from the Secretary of Public Health and the Office of the Governor also,” Dela Cruz said. “We are still waiting for assistance that we’re expecting from the emergency declaration.”
He said the lack of funds makes it impossible to address the medical needs of residents.
Some are upset that they cannot get medical assistance they usually received in the past.
“I told them these are the signs of the times. The municipality is struggling. The casino is struggling. We haven’t received any funding from the central government since May of this year,” the mayor said.
He said the Tinian Health Center doesn’t have enough doctors and lacks supplies.
He said he is providing fuel and other supplies needed by the center to make sure it remains open.
Tinian has one doctor only, Stephan Lebamoff, who came on board in March. He was off island but was expected to return Sunday.
With the Department of Public Health scheduled to become a public corporation on Oct. 1, the mayor said he recommended one of his staff members to serve on the board of trustees for the corporation.
As of Saturday, he said, he had not received information whether the governor would accept his recommendation.
“I am still hanging on. I continue to use the very limited resources that we get from the casino to assist in the delivery of health and public safety services on Tinian,” Dela Cruz said.
Variety also learned that a Tinian Health Center nurse had already fainted twice on the job.
The nurse had been working 24 hours since Aug. 7 “because Dr. Lebamoff is in Hawaii on medical referral (that the CNMI paid for),” said a patient who declined to be identified.
The patient said the clinic had no money to pay for other health providers.
“I have personally seen her nose bleed while she was talking to me and I have heard from the other nurses that she has actually fainted in her office twice,” the patient said.
The assistant to the THC director Freddy Hofschneider “actually threatened the provider to provide service or she would be blamed if someone died,” the patient said.
THC has no medicine, no testing and laboratory equipment, not even toilet paper, the patient added. “The clinic on Tinian is about to collapse.”
Valley Inn
Asked about the news that Valley Inn has been acquired by the Northern Marianas Housing Corp. as guest house for medical referral patients, Mayor Dela Cruz said: “That will be excellent. The Municipality of Tinian spends close to about $1,500 a month just to house our off-island patients.”
He said their medical referral liaison office is overbooked and overcrowded.
Valley Inn was acquired by NMHC from the Commonwealth Development Authority on July 28 for $380,000.
