Articles

Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Source: Endi.com
By: Jose Ayala Gordian

The Office of the Comptroller noted that the institution paid an additional $3,733 that it never reclaimed

The Office of the Comptroller issued recommendations to the interim president of the University of Puerto Rico, Darrel Hillman, and to the chancellor of the Medical Sciences Campus (RCM), Dr. Segundo Rodriguez Quilichini, because the institutions they lead did not follow, in 2013, the correct legal procedures in awarding two contracts for the education and training of two pediatric surgeons.

According to the investigation, with code RIQ-OQIF-18-04, both the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) and the chancellor of the RCM failed to follow the proper legal processes in awarding three contracts (one of them was not fully formalized) of scholarships to cover the classes and training of two pediatric surgeons.

The RCM awarded, on February 13, 2013, contract 2013-001395 to a university in Canada, in which the Puerto Rican institution committed to pay 75,000 Canadian dollars annually for each resident participating in the training program. However, the contract was awarded with 227 days of retroactivity.

The same happened with contract 2013-001612, of April 29, 2013, to provide a scholarship to one of the doctors at another Canadian university. The pediatric surgery scholarship for the physician was set at $312,000 but, on this occasion, it took effect with 302 days of retroactivity.

Finally, a third contract of February 26, 2013, with one of the universities for the training of the second doctor was not formalized, but the RCM paid $75,000 on December 2, 2014, for the classes and training the doctor received at the Canadian university from June 2013 to June 2014.

The investigation found that the RCM paid the $75,000 in U.S. dollars for the training of one of the doctors, which resulted in the RCM paying $3,733 too much that it never reclaimed.

Therefore, the Office of the Comptroller recommended that Hillman ensure that, in the future, the contracts awarded by the RCM be prospective in nature, formalized in writing, and that they include the value or amount of the contract.

Likewise, Rodriguez Quilichini was recommended to “carry out the necessary steps and issue instructions so that situations like those mentioned are not repeated,” as well as to begin the process to recover the money paid in excess to one of the Canadian universities.

Medical Sciences will take measures

For its part, the RCM indicated, through written statements, that “they will take the necessary measures to comply with the report's recommendations,” while praising the work of the two surgeons who were not identified in the Comptroller's document.

“Nonetheless, we are proud to be able to count on doctors of the caliber and humanism that characterize these two physicians. In the short period of time they have been in Puerto Rico, both have had the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to the island in various ways. They have actively participated in media forums speaking on topics of interest to the communities. These surgeons have also taken on the task of educating health professionals as guest lecturers of the Critical Care Society, the Puerto Rican Society of Pediatrics, the Association of Pediatricians of the Eastern Area, and the Puerto Rican Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, among others,” reads the press release.

“They are also an active part of the Campus's School of Medicine faculty, in addition to being the most active surgeons in major cases throughout the island. Besides performing general pediatric surgeries, they also perform non-cardiac thoracic surgeries when there was a single person on the island who attended to these patients. They are the only surgeons in Puerto Rico, and among the few that exist in the world, formally trained to perform minimally invasive pediatric and neonatal surgeries,” the RCM added in the document.