Taking charge

With Cebu City Hall’s declaration that it is willing to assume completion of the Cebu City Medical Center, city residents can only hope that they make good on their word if only to decongest the backlog of unattended medical cases involving indigent patients.

Interestingly enough, the declaration came amid a proposal to have the city government assume implementation of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) after the Department of Transportation (DOTR) flip-flopped anew and declared its support to the project.

In both instances, the Barug Team Rama-PDP Laban chided the administration for trying to assume responsibility for completing the BRT as they called first for the completion of the city hospital before tackling the multi-billion peso bus transit project.

But truth be told, there is no legal impediment if any for the city government to tackle both projects. In fact, doing so would test both the local leadership’s mettle and commitment to implement projects that will be hugely beneficial to their constituents.

Let’s set aside the BRT for another day and focus on the city hospital, the subject of a grand, ambitious scheme by the administration’s predecessor and current opposition party to establish it as a one-stop shop for emergency response and affordable health care.

But aside from public pronouncements, there was very little done to rebuild the city hospital that sustained heavy damage from the Oct. 15, 2013 earthquake aside from it being demolished to give way for what was supposedly a complex that will also house the city’s fire station and emergency response team.

The previous plan was to simply retrofit the damaged portions so the city hospital can be fully operational but there were other plans that sadly didn’t take off from the drawing board.

At any rate City Hall’s Department of Engineering and Public Works (DEPW) was given three days to come out with a design plan that will hopefully result in the city hospital’s partial opening of its ground and second floors within this year.

Again it is scaled down but is there any argument from anyone especially the political opposition to redesign the city hospital to fasttrack its operations?

Most likely the argument will stem from possible deviation from the recommendations given by the Department of Health for the city hospital to have six floors rather than the proposed 10 floors.

At any rate, time is of the essence in getting the city hospital back to full operation. With every passing day, more poor patients are either being told to go elsewhere or left to fend for themselves—a situation that is most deplorable.