Actions speak louder than words

Yo Amti By Vincent Akimoto

A brave patient wrote, “If it hurt to watch the fire, imagine how impossible it was to live it. Please make yourself uncomfortable and listen to the whole thing. Please be broken by how many mistakes were made. Please be infuriated that our only public hospital is in this state. Be absolutely terrified that this is the only civilian hospital with a pediatric ward available to Guam citizens.”

The fire had forced the chaotic evacuation of sick children from the fourth-floor pediatric ward. Scared parents and relatives frantically scrambled to make certain that their babies were still alive! What was a fire doing bursting out in the Guam Memorial Hospital?

GovGuam officials dutifully picked through the rubble and rubbed their hands together guiltily like Pontius Pilate trying to wash his hands of an innocent man’s blood.

Senators made bold pronouncements. The governor cried crocodile tears. 6 weeks later, nobody has done a damn thing. They all seem to be waiting for that rickety ol’ hospital to explode.

Then suddenly, Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero declared the hospital to be in a state of emergency. She called the Legislature into session on a Saturday. Made all them Senators get out of bed, put on their fancy clothes, and then Gov. Lou skipped down to Ypao beach to have a taxpayer-paid Labor Day picnic.

Turns out, Gov. Lou didn’t think the burning hospital in Tamuning was an emergency. No. The governor was more worried about her Mangilao property development project, where she planned to build the new GMH in 5 years and solve everybody’s problems.

Gov. Lou thought that the legislature should urgently give her tyrannical dictatorial superpowers so she could build her Magical Mangilao Malibu Barbie Hospital.

The legislature said, “No.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Yigo, poisonous dieldrin was found in the water. Dieldrin is a 1970s-era neurotoxic organochlorine compound that kills little children and breastfeeding mothers.

Back in the day, dieldrin was used as a pesticide to kill termites and tsetse flies. Turns out dieldrin was better at killing people than killing insects.

People who on purpose or accidentally ate large amounts of dieldrin have suffered convulsions and died. Dieldrin has been linked to liver failure, Parkinson's disease, testicular damage, and breast cancer. For this reason, in 1987, this chemical was banned in most of the world.

Guam’s acting Gov. Joshua Tenorio acted swiftly to dieldrin in the water and declared a state of emergency.

The Guam Waterworks Authority's general manager, Miguel Bordallo, humbly admitted that he had failed to communicate the public health threat sufficiently and cooperate with authorities.

Under local law, an emergency declaration unlocks $250,000 in immediate funds for response. That money can be spent without the usual red tape, to get safe drinking water back to affected homes.

Tenorio said, "With this, GWA has the resources to act quickly to get safe drinking water to affected families. It enables GWA to immediately procure filters and other supplies, like point-of-entry systems that can filter water before it even reaches the taps in our homes.”

Tenorio stressed that protecting the island’s drinking water should be paramount. "We must remember that water is life," he said. "This sustaining resource must be cherished. It must be protected. It cannot be taken for granted. It is our collective responsibility to protect it and to act whenever its safety is threatened.”

To that I say to you, governor: life is life. A burning GMH baby in Tamuning should be worth as much as a dieldrin-poisoned child in Yigo.

The question remains, why do life-threatening fires at GMH not get as much GovGuam attention as dieldrin? The answer is Erin Bronkovich and class action lawsuits. GovGuam politicians only seem to take things seriously when smart-ass lawyers show up and humiliate them.

This painfully heartbreaking reality about GovGuam's inertia and the failures of the Guam Memorial Hospital is long overdue. Don’t run away from it. A great change must happen. Your Government of Guam is corrupt.

Your governor and your senators are perpetuating a villainous political patronage system that robs government resources from the same poor patients that they now use as human shields in this medical soap opera that is the Guam Memorial Hospital.

Shame on you, Lou. Shame on Guam.

Dr. Vincent Akimoto practices Family Medicine at the American Medical Clinic. Send feedback to akimotovince@yahoo.com.

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