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Nuclear test-affected island
officials are not happy that the health program for their
islands is shutting its doors at the end of December after
16 years of operation.
A victim of lack of funding
from the US, with the end of the first Compact funding
period, the 177 Health Plan announced this week that it is
closing on December 31.
The program currently
provides health care services to about 7,000 islanders from
Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap and Utrik.
“It’s a very big concern to
Rongelap (that the program is closing),” said Rongelap
Senator Abacca Anjain-Maddison. “We’re not happy to see it
close.”
She indicated that Rongelap leaders will be meeting later
this month to discuss possible ways to maintain the program,
including the possibility of the local government picking up
the costs of having a medical doctor on Mejatto so as not to
lose this valuable service that the 177 Health Plan started
earlier this year.
“We’re really unhappy about
it,” said Bikini liaison Jack Niedenthal.
“The biggest advantage of
the program for nuclear victims is not the off-island care,
but the primary care offered,” he said. “This is the most
important aspect of the program because it eliminates the
need for off-island referrals.”
Niedenthal said the 177
Health Plan’s primary care program included doctor visits to
the outer islands, re-supplying the dispensaries and the
provision of doctors on the four atolls.
He said the Bikini
community was delighted with having the Nepalese medical
doctor providing services to its community on Kili.
The 177 Health Plan now
funds four Nepalese medical doctors on Kili, Enewetak,
Mejatto (Rongelap) and Utrik. Late last month, the doctor on
Enewetak reportedly successfully handled two high-risk
deliveries that would normally have required medical
evacuation to Majuro.
Anjain-Maddison indicated
that many in the Rongelap community are worried about how
they are going to receive health care in the future. She
said that while the 177 Health Plan is ending, Rongelap and
other four atoll people would still receive care from the
Ministry of Health.
She said that efforts were
ongoing with the RMI to lobby the US Congress to extend
additional funding to continue the four atoll health
program, and also to seek health care funding through the
changed circumstances petition that has been pending with
the US Congress for more than three years.
Niedenthal wasn’t very
optimistic about efforts at the Washington end.
As the program winds down this month, program assets are
being divided up among the four atolls. “We’re getting a
van,” Niedenthal said. |
