To sum up the hospital crisis by saying that lack of money is to blame for the shortage of doctors or critical diagnostic equipment and supplies is irresponsible. Physicians have written letters to the media reporting critical and life-threatening shortages at the hospital for several years now.
To be sure, the Legislature and administration have a direct responsibility for the dire condition at CHC. They have placed their leisure activities and political futures first and have funded non-essential programs and jobs at the expense of hiring doctors, replacing and maintaining life-saving equipment, lab tests, blood and other critical medical supplies.
Spending extra days at the hospital hoping a clear diagnosis will materialize even though equipment and tests are not available is not a good life-saving approach. Medical personnel will be the first to tell you that the hospital is not a healthy place to hang out — there are too many germs. If the government fails to pay providers of blood, lab tests and other critical vendors, no amount of waiting will get the job done. Under those circumstances, “best guess” is the modus operandi.
The hospital has to close the children’s clinic for lack of funding even as the Legislature appropriates $5 million only for hospital operations because it is a “corporation” now. Lawmakers will point out that there is $18 million in receivables that the hospital can use for operations — if CHC can afford $1,000 to buy stamps to mail out bills to delinquent former patients who are either no longer on island or are too broke to pay for anything.
Prior to the CHC state of emergency declaration, the administration hired for “$1 a year” a new “consultant,” former Governor Babauta, who will supposedly perform some important but unexplained duty. With so many secretaries and deputy secretaries at the hospital, including heads and deputy heads of divisions and programs, it is hard to see how one more boss — a politician itching to get back into an elected office — will make things more efficient.
All the governor’s men
AS the quality of healthcare descends into the nether regions so does the quality of law enforcement as represented by the AG’s office and OPA which preferred to remain uncommitted in determining whether to blow the lid off an obviously questionable and probably anomalous public contract.
If the attorney general did ask for an opinion on the ethics question and the public auditor refused to say anything about it then OPA must share the blame for this fiasco. If the public auditor had rendered a politically unpopular but clean opinion on the ethics issue, the contract might not have been signed and this whole mess could have been avoided.
The attorney general, on the other hand, can read the procurement regulations just as well as anyone and could have come to his own conclusions, which he clearly chose not to do, throwing it to the public auditor and then wiping his hands clean of the whole mess. When you are the chief law enforcement officer you have a duty and responsibility to uphold the law.
So now, what will the AG’s office do with a contract that the feds call “null and void”?
The public, in any case, has a right to expect the public auditor to make the hard calls. This is why OPA has maximum protection from political pressure by way of a guaranteed budget and a lengthy term of office. These are designed to insulate him from legislative and administrative pressure. It is time for the public auditor to demonstrate that the public trust will be honored and not compromised in the cheap political way that appears to have been done in executing the ARRA contract.
