LBJ board chair answers Samoa News on status of Dr. Saleeapaga

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A number of factors led to placing the LBJ Hospital Chief Medical Officer on leave with pay, including lack of performance when it comes to submitting timely medical reports, overseeing the medical clinic, and hiring of more doctors and nurses.

This was stated by the chairman of the hospital board Dr. Malouamaua Puleisili Tuiolosega in response to Samoa News questions.

As first reported by Samoa News, hospital CEO Moefaauo Bill Emmsley issued a memo — placing Dr Iotamo Saleapaga on leave with pay and appointing Dr Akapusi Ledua as acting CMO — dated November 4, 2022.

 “Effective immediately the Board has placed Dr Iotamo Saleapaga on leave with pay. As such, the Board in turn has appointed Dr Akapusi Ledua as Acting CMO until further notice.

 “Meanwhile, Dr Ledua has full authority to act as LBJ’s CMO directing, managing and operating in such capacity to oversee all aspects of the Medical Department, the Ancillary Division and their entire staff and respective function,” said the CEO in the memorandum issued last week.

Dr Tuiolosega said that Dr Iotamo Saleapaga’s work as a medical doctor is not in question, rather it is the administration side of his work that has been called into question.

 “So we gave him two weeks on leave with pay, and offered him a position as a Chief Liaison Officer on behalf of the hospital with the Department of Health where Saleapaga would oversee after hour clinics, for non emergency patients.

 “This is something we are working on at the moment with the DoH… it was up to [Dr] Saleapaga whether to accept the proposition or not, but as of this morning (Monday) he accepted it, otherwise we would have had to terminate his contract,” explained Dr Tuiolosega.

Adding that the hospital will provide doctors to run the after hour clinics in the villages and the DoH will provide the nurses and all the non-urgent care patients will use the DoH clinics.

 “This will assist the hospital’s emergency room deal with emergency cases. At the moment there is roughly 70 to 80 percent that visit the ER [who] are not emergency cases, so this is one way to deal with unnecessary congesting of the ER — is for patients to be screened at the clinics,” he said.

The chairman of the Board made it clear that Dr Saleapaga’s contract has not been terminated.

The Chairman of the Board said that Dr Saleapaga underwent a performance assessment, given that he has a four-year contract with the hospital.

 “And it’s not three years as indicated earlier by the CEO of the hospital. It is the normal process for every contract employee to undergo a performance evaluation in the midst of his or her contract and that is what the board did with Saleapaga,” said Dr Tuiolosega.

He told Samoa News the vote was four yay and one board member abstained in the vote to place Dr Saleapaga on leave with pay.

Dr Tuiolosega told Samoa News the decision by the Board follows their assessment of Dr. Saleapaga’s administrative work — that it was “too much for him; there are a number of issues that went into the decision making of the board.”

The hospital CEO Moefaauo told Samoa News the hospital has enough doctors on hand to handle the daily operations.

 “We have a lot of doctors, as a matter of fact we have five doctors in the pipeline and 10 applicants to be hired and we just need to re-credential them and we had an aggressive recruitment of doctors, when I came on board, so we’re okay.

“But as far as the CMO — someone is acting right now until such a time when the board will advertise the position,” said Moefaauo.

According to Moefaauo he had nothing to do with the letter, referring to the memorandum printed in yesterday’s Samoa News, saying it was not his letter it was the Chairman of the Board that signed off on it.

 “That letter is not my letter it was signed by the Chairman of the hospital,” he said. However, Samoa News should point out on the subject of the letter it says “to Chief, Directors, Managers and General Staff of the LBJ from Moefaauo Bill Emmsley, CEO LBJ.”

Samoa News also reached out to Dr Saleapaga for comments but he declined and referred queries to the hospital CEO and Chairman.