2 May 2012

Up to 17 CNMI hospital admin staff to be terminated

9:23 am on 2 May 2012

In the Northern Marianas, up to 17 administrative staff at the Commonwealth Health Centre are expected to be laid off.

The move is part part of a reduction-in-force to help sustain the cash-strapped Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.

The corporation says these workers will be let go of within the month to "significantly reduce" the personnel cost at the Commonwealth's lone public hospital.

The corporation spends some 1.7 million US dollars for about 600 employees on three islands per payroll.

The termination's comes a week after the corporation announced that 24 employees from the Tinian and Rota health centers will be affected by the reduction-in-force.

Before that, the CHC already laid off 19 personnel at the Community Guidance Centre.

This brings to about 60 the number of affected full-time employees since the reduction-in-force was implemented.

This number does not include those employees who have already resigned in the wake of CHC's financial crisis.