Recent article from the Marianas Variety
In the Marianas Variety article, Dr. Cornett is saying that instead of hiring unlicensed (U.S.) doctors, CHC really needs a 64 slice CT Scanner and a Cath Lab. Normally the scanner would cost 1.5 to 2 million and the Cath Lab is between 1 to 2 million.
CHC would probably pay 15 million for both, so it is not economically benificially in the short term to take care of those things. Additionally, I think some people are happy with the status quo. This is a small island, and if all the equiptment were on the island, and all the doctors were here, we would not get a medical referral with family members to the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, and the U.S. mainland. 2 million each year in non-medical patient costs is actually not that high. Numbers keep being thrown out about $60,000 to send a patient to the Philippines or $20,000 to Guam are clearly outliers and are for shock value only. The medical referral office is probably being run efficiently.
I am actually surprised that Dr. Cornett would write something like that in the paper. I guess the memo not to speak to the Oversight Committe, didn't apply to newspaper.
