13 Jun 2014

Problems still for American Samoa medical referrals

4:14 pm on 13 June 2014

American Samoa's long troubled hospital, the LBJ, is yet to resume off island medical referrals because, despite a special tax, it still has insufficient money.

The hospital stopped the overseas referrals four years ago and two years ago the Government started applying an additional two percent wage tax to help overcome the problem.

The wage tax was to first pay off a hospital loan of 3 million US dollars owed to the Workmen's Compensation Account, which has been achieved.

After that the money is to go to the hospital, with 50 percent to fund the off island referral programmne and the balance for the LBJ's operations.

But the hospital chief executive Joseph Davis-Fleming says they still do not have enough money to restart the programme.