[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 70 (Tuesday, May 11, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H3301-H3302]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     THEY CARED FOR US: A TRIBUTE TO OUR LOCAL DOCTORS AND DENTISTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Northern Mariana Islands (Mr. Sablan) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. SABLAN. Madam Speaker, in 1914, a young Chamorro by the name of 
Jose Diaz Torres began his training in medicine at a small hospital 
opened by the German colonial administration on the island of Saipan. 
Chamorro people had their own healing and medicinal traditions from 
ancient times, but Spanish colonizers introduced the indigenous people 
to Western medicine, and the Germans continued this practice upon 
taking control of the Northern Mariana Islands at the end of the 19th 
century. The Germans had a commitment to training local people, and 
Jose Torres, or Dr. Torres as he came to be called, thus became the 
islands' first local doctor. When Japan supplanted Germany, Dr. Torres 
continued his practice in a hospital the Japanese constructed. There 
too, the careers of Saipan's first Chamorro dentists, Dr. Manuel 
Manibusan Aldan and Dr. Juan Charfauros Reyes, began.
  Victory over the Japanese in World War II brought the United States 
to control of the Northern Mariana Islands. After the war, the islands 
were administered under a United Nations trusteeship arrangement that 
required the United States to improve the standard of living. This 
responsibility

[[Page H3302]]

was carried out by the U.S. Department of the Navy during the 1950s. 
The Navy built temporary hospitals on Saipan for the treatment of both 
military and civilian personnel. In recognition that the local 
population needed access to permanent medical care, the Navy also 
expanded the colonial practice of training promising individuals in 
dentistry and medicine. The Navy sent Dr. Juan Charfauros Reyes for 
further education to the School of Dental Assistants, Navy Hospital, 
Guam. Doctors Jose Lujan Chong, Francisco Taman Palacios, Benusto 
Rogolifoi Kaipat, Jose Tenorio Villagomez, and Calistro Camacho Cabrera 
were sent for medical training first to the Naval Medical School on 
Guam and then to the Central Medical School at Suva, Fiji, in the early 
1950s.

                              {time}  2000

  Dr. Carlos Sablan Camacho similarly trained in Fiji later in the 
decade and in Hawaii in the 1970s.
  In 1962, two important events took place in the Northern Mariana 
Islands. First, the U.S. Department of the Interior took over the 
United States' trusteeship responsibilities from the Navy, inaugurating 
the establishment of the Government of the Trust Territory of the 
Pacific Islands, the capital of which was eventually located on Saipan. 
Second, the residents of Saipan witnessed the grand opening of a 
modern, civilian-staffed hospital built on As Terlaje hill, christened 
Dr. Torres Hospital in honor of Saipan's first local doctor.
  The 1960s and 1970s brought opportunities for the aforementioned 
local doctors to obtain advanced training in Guam and in Hawaii. 
Joining the ranks of the Northern Marianas' first doctors and dentists 
in 1972 were Dr. Manuel Quitano Sablan and Dr. Helen Taro, who earned 
their degree in dentistry and medicine, respectively, from the Fiji 
School of Medicine. Like their faithful colleagues before them, Dr. 
Sablan and Dr. Taro returned after their schooling to be of service to 
the people of the Northern Marianas, taking care of the dental and 
medical needs of the island community.
  The people of the Northern Mariana Islands have the deepest 
appreciation, admiration, and respect for our pioneer doctors and 
dentists--to those still living today and to the memory of those that 
have passed on. May their compassion and dedication always be an 
example and inspire more of our young people to pursue a career in 
health care.

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