15 Oct 2012

CNMI hospital gets 4 new defibrillators

10:15 am on 15 October 2012

The Commonwealth Health Corporation has received a shipment of four new defibrillators for the Northern Marianas lone hospital.

This eases the pressure after the US federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last month placed a 'severe sanction of immediate jeopardy' on the hospital because of nonfunctioning defibrillators.

Such a status threatened the hospital's federal funding.

The Commonwealth Health Corporation was given 23 days to rectify the deficiency or else Medicare funds would stop flowing to the hospital.

It gets up to 10 million US dollars in Medicare reimbursements every year.