A new ambulance boat for St. John was among the top items discussed at Wednesday’s Health, Hospitals and Human Services Committee meeting at the Legislature building on St. John.
"The acquisition of the long-awaited ambulance boat is nearing the end of the process," Health Commissioner Julia Sheen said.
The state-of-the-art catamaran will replace the aged Star of Life ambulance boat, and will cost about $900,000 to $1 million, ambulance boat driver Liston Sprauve told committee members.
It will be 48 to 55 feet long, hold four to five patients and can carry a crew of five.
According to Sheen, the Health Department expects to select one of the four finalists to build the boat by "month’s end." One of those four is located on St. Croix. The other three are on the mainland.
To reach this point, the Health Department hired a consultant for $7,000, Sheen said.
Harold Wallace, who serves as administrator at Myrah Keating Smith Community Health Center, an arm of Schneider Regional Medical Center, pushed for a helicopter.
"We are all aware of the helicopter’s advantages," Wallace said.
He said he’s researched the issue and that it would cost $7.6 million to buy the helicopter and set up the operation, plus $1 million a year to run it.
However, he noted that in order to make the helicopter financially feasible, its operations and cost would have to be shared by all the territory’s medical facilities.
As for what Health Department Human Resources Director Frank Abednego called "interpersonal challenges" at the department’s Morris deCastro Clinic, those are being addressed, he said.
"Our initial approach in meeting the needs of our employees and the clinic administration began with meetings and was supported by assuring that our leadership participates in cultural diversity training, sexual harassment training and participation in the departmental strategic management session," Abednego said.
In October, Morris deCastro closed when employees staged a sick out to protest a conflict between the clinic’s management and employees.
Under questioning by Sen. Patrick Simeon Sprauve, who chairs the Health Committee, Morris deCastro’s only mental health nurse, Myia Powell, said the situation at deCastro was so difficult that she may retire by the end of the year.
"Yesterday my blood pressure went through the roof," she said.
In addition to Powell, immunization nurse Judith Plair and public health nurse Sally Browne testified. Since they are all approaching or past normal retirement age, Sprauve asked Abednego how he planned to replace them. Abednego said that his current priority was finding people to fill existing vacancies but "succession" replacements will be addressed.
Browne told Sprauve that there won’t be a "line" coming to fill her position.
"The public health nurse is responsible for cradle to grave," she said, outlining how she works with all age groups on St. John.
Morris deCastro staff is further challenged by the fact that most of their clients are undocumented aliens who don’t speak English, several testifiers said.
And those undocumented aliens who are pregnant won’t go to St. Thomas for tests, like sonograms, because even if they can afford them they’re afraid they’ll be picked up by U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services when they reach St. Thomas, Browne said.
Both Wallace and Browne said the number of undocumented patients at their facilities is increasing.
In further discussing the sonogram issue, Deputy Health Commissioner Lynette George said that people who can’t afford sonograms usually don’t have them before they reach delivery. George said when there’s an emergency during delivery, a sonogram is then done.
"This means they may fall through the cracks and end up with a baby with health issues," Sen. Nereida Rivera-O’Reilly said.
Alex Williams, the territorial head of the Health Department’s Emergency Medical Service, put the response time for ambulance service at five minutes in St. John, seven to eight minutes on St. Thomas and four minutes on St. Croix. He said it costs St. John residents a total of $1,000 for an ambulance ride on St. John, a trip across Pillsbury Sound on the Star of Life and an ambulance trip to the hospital on St. Thomas.
Haiti’s earthquake came up several times during the Health Committee meeting that had both morning and evening sessions. At the evening session, Sen. Craig Barshinger asked that anyone with usable crutches bring them to Legislature buildings on all three islands so they can be sent to Haiti.
In addition to Sprauve and Barshinger, committee members Alvin L. Williams attended the meeting. Rivera-O’Reilly is a non-committee member.
