by Andi Atteberry, KUAM News Wednesday, March 09, 2005 E-mail this article Printable version KUAM Toolbar Web Widgets Get RSS headlines

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It looks like one dose of the Guam Memorial Hospital mixed with one dose of the Civil Service Commission is creating a prescription for disaster and the latest crisis to hit the Hospital. Down to just four pharmacists, three of which who are looking to jumping ship for higher paying jobs at retail pharmacies, with one getting ready to retire. The emergency state of the pharmacy just keeps intensifying.

"The bottom line is we are going to have to shutdown period, said GMH assistant administrator Zenia Pecina. She further elaborates that after word came from a meeting with the CSC Tuesday the Hospital's days of running a pharmacy are numbered. "We are getting a lot of resistance in getting their contacts renewed which would mean no pharmacists whatsoever which would further mean no medications for patients period," Pecina explained.

But CSC executive director Vern Perez is looking at the ongoing dialogue between the two groups in a much different way and insists the CSC is there to help jumpstart GMH's recruitment efforts. "Certainly we want to help the hospital get their recruitment issue solved and find those solutions. We will have some recommendations for them," he told KUAM News.

While the Hospital is budgeted to keep ten full-time pharmacists on staff, only four have been willing to stick around this long. This means working around the clock, six-to-seven days a week just to keep the hospital functioning. But now, Pecina says, the CSC is calling those overtime hours illegal, giving the Hospital no choice but to cut services. She said, "They are so focused on the overtime and it really isn't significant based on the number of vacancies we currently have, if we were able to fill the vacancies you wouldn't see the overtime period."

GMH chief pharmacist Robert Winegar said, "If its illegal we are not going to break the law, so we are going to cut our hours down to forty hours a week, five days a week close on weekends, and nursing or whoever else is going to have to provide all the services, maybe civil service has an answer for that."

Winegar says frustration over the Civil Service Commission's interference has reached an al- time high from his perspective, noting that yesterday the CSC even questioned the validity of one pharmacist license who has been working at GMH for twenty-five years. "Civil Service doesn't have a clue of what pharmacy does or what the qualifications are for licensure," he asserted, "but yet they make the decisions for the Government of Guam and the island of Guam about who is going to work in the pharmacy."

And so, the GMH administration has a real problem on its hands if the CSC is not willing to budge and give the four remaining pharmacists a contract, they maintain they can't outsource pharmacists, because retail pharmacists don't have the experience to mix drugs for a hospital. But with a cut in hours, GMH says the only other choice is to put nursing in charge on nights and weekends, which is not only illegal but Pecina says a very scary thought.

She said, "Number one, they are not pharmacists so they don't know how to mix medications, number two we are so short of nurses where are we actually going to get the nurses to mix medications and so forth."

The pharmacy's new hours (8-5 Monday to Friday) will take effect March 14. If this situation isn't resolved before then, CSC director Perez kept his comments brief today and says that he can't elaborate too much because the final recommendation report isn't finalized and believes its premature to respond at this time.