Nearly six months after legislation was approved giving the territorial hospitals greater controls over their affairs, there is still some uncertainty about semi-autonomy for the health care facilities territory-wide.
During this week’s meeting of the Roy L. Schneider Hospital board, Eugene Woods, chief executive officer, lamented the continuing delays in getting notices of personnel action, hiring papers, processed for critically-needed staff.
"It’s taking on average two to four months to process the NOPA’s for nursing positions in the emergency room and other critical areas," he said adding that the hospital’s administration is currently negotiating with the central government to eliminate much of the delay in hiring, while not compromising fiscal controls.
There is every incentive for the hospital to expedite the hiring process, Woods said, given the areas in which there are, and have been staffing shortages.
"There is a shortage both here and stateside," he said noting that some states are offering signing bonuses upon hiring. "But we do not have that flexibility here."
Woods speculated that much of what is preventing the hospital from filling critical positions has to do with unfamiliarity with the semi-autonomy law passed last August. Some government officers, he admitted, are simply not comfortable being asked to do things differently than in the past.
Woods expressed confidence that the hospital and the Turnbull administration will work things out, given the governor’s commitment to the goal of greater hospital autonomy. "They agreed to fast-track the positions under the new law," he said Monday. "We have been meeting with the governor to hammer out the wrinkles in the legislation’s implementation," he added.
The hospital is reportedly working with the University of the Virgin Islands towards the identification of nurses that can be recruited locally.
