By Mabel Doge Luhan
Chalk one up for my LONGTIME PROTEGE, Leona Helmsley! In 2007 she had herself declared dead entirely for tax reasons (copying my 1962 tax maneuver). But even from “beyond the grave” (wink wink), sweet little Leona is doing good for us here in the CNMI!
The Helmsley Trust’s gift of an MRI machine to CHCC is huge. Tremendous. We could have bought several MRI machines every year, of course, had we not been funding MVA’s vacations and payroll — but that’s all cash under the bridge. For now, this MRI is going to improve not only measurable health outcomes, but quality of life and cost-effectiveness for our people. That $6.4 million will come back to us fast — not just in in Medicaid billing for MRI services, but in medical referral savings.
It’s not by chance that I’ve stayed alive for over a century, despite my raging opium habit and the laments of Bryan Manabat, Ralph Torres, and Warren Harding. CHCC has some truly excellent physicians — especially considering how limited those physicians are in their resources, and how constrained they are by political hacks on CHCC’s administrative and management side. An MRI will allow those physicians to do more of the good work they are fully capable of doing if given the right equipment and support.
This is important though. Please let’s not mess this one up. Please don’t treat this MRI machine the way the CNMI government has treated every piece of equipment and machinery given it by the feds — ignoring maintenance until it can be sold off to a croney. I do not want to hear a year from now that “the MRI is down” and two years from now that it’s been sold for $1,000 (wink wink) to a hospital in the Philippines. This MRI is so crucial to our Commonwealth’s wellbeing that I suggest the Office of the Public Auditor and DPS make it an actual line-item priority to check on its maintenance and physical security.
As for the naysayers who think CHCC is all rotten? They’re the same ones who will tell you to drink baking soda instead of taking your meds, or let your kids go to the ICU (accompanied by their school peers) rather than being vaccinated for covid. They’re also often the same people who think the CNMI is beyond repair, for some mysterious reason that usually amounts to some amount of ethnic stereotyping.
Biba, CHCC, Esther Muna, all the medical staff, and the Helmsley Foundation. And most of all, biba Leona Helmsley. I taught her well.
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Mabel Doge Luhan is a woman of loose morals. She resides in Kagman V, where she pursues her passions of crocheting, beatboxing, and falconry.
