City working to upgrade CCMC, Guba hospital

Cebu City Hall is gearing up for the improvements of the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) and the Guba Community Hospital in the mountains for next year.

CCMC hospital Administrator Kenneth Siasar told the Cebu City Council during yesterday’s budget hearing that they would be working on upgrading the accreditations of the two medical facilities with the Department of Health (DOH).

He said they are expecting that a portion of the new CCMC, which is undergoing construction, will already be available for partial occupancy sometime next year.

This will provide the city with space for additional beds that can pave way for the CCMC to be accredited as a level 2 hospital.

“If we can upgrade to level 2, we can increase bed capacity from 98 to 200. This opens more opportunities for hospital services. If the city earns P80 million to P100 million now, this can go up to at least P140 million,” Siasar said.

He said that they already tried applying for the upgrading this year, but the city failed since the city still had no facility to cater to the additional beds.

He said the city had passed the other DOH requirements for the upgrading in terms of laboratories, departments and organ imaging.

When the portion of the new CCMC building would be available, then the city would use the space for additional beds.

Siasar also cited the benefits of the city hospital getting a level 2 upgrade.

“We will be able to cater to majority of our clients with lesser monetary considerations unlike private hospitals. Our revenues will also increase. We can provide more services like more kinds of surgeries and operations,” he said.

As for the Guba Community Hospital, he said they also planned to upgrade the facility from being a primary care facility to being a level 1 hospital. This would mean the community hospital can increase its bed capacity from 25 to 98.

This will also give the city an additional P2 million in revenues. Siasar said the DOH will also be giving Guba a P15-million budget this December.

The DOH will also be the one to implement the budget for the construction of a second floor in the one-story community hospital which will allow them to have more beds.

They are asking for a P28-million budget from the city government for the Guba Community Hospital and a P310-million budget for the CCMC.

Failing to bag award

Meanwhile, Cebu City Administrator Veronica Morelos looked at the bright side in failing to bag the Seal of Good Local Governance from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).

“We failed in the overall rating. There were criteria where we failed. But there are also certain areas where we passed. They will be giving us a certificate that we passed in these areas,” Morelos said when sought to comment about the award which Cebu Province and the Mandaue City government bagged this year.

She said the main criterion where Cebu City flunked was in terms of financial administration, where it failed in two out of the five indicators.

Sought for comment, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said that he’s not bothered with the results.

“I’m not worried about any award. I’m worried about raising our income. I’m worried about our tax collection. I’m worried about our traffic. I’m not trying to win in a dance contest here. I don’t need any award. I’ll just work. I will answer to the Cebuanos,” he said.