Governor Gwendolyn Garcia /Cdn Online file photo
BANTAYAN, Cebu — From presently at 25-beds , the Capitol is seeking to upgrade Bantayan District Hospital into a 100-bed medical facility with a permanently assigned surgeon.
Governor Gwendolyn Garcia said the Provincial Health Office (PHO) is now negotiating with the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7) to approve the upgrade of the hospital.
Garcia has already instructed Provincial Health Officer Dr. Christina Gianggo to suit the 2020 budget of the Bantayan District Hospital with the necessary funding for its upgrade.
With its present setup, Bantayan District Hospital has five medical officers, 14 nurses and five nursing attendants.
If the DOH will approve the proposed upgrade, they will also recalibrate the number of medical personnel assigned in the hospital.
“Aron ma-upgraded na gyud ang services nato dinhi, nagsabot na mi ni Dr. Gianggo alang sa 2020 ang atong igahin nga budget niini ug amo pod nga hangyoon ang Department of Health nga mag-upgrade na ta into a 50-bed capacity hospital,” Garcia said in her speech at the district hospital on Monday morning, September 20.
“Sayod kita mao ra ni ang hospital nga kadaganan sa atong mga kaigsuonan,” she said.
(We all know that this is the only hospital that our poor townfolks can go to.)
In a speech in the Bantayan Municipal Hall, Garcia retracted her earlier pronouncement to upgrade the hospital’s capacity to 50 beds. Instead, she said that they would be working on upgrading it to a 100-bed capacity.
Bantayan District Hospital caters to the residents of the three municipalities in the island: Santa Fe, Bantayan and Madridejos.
“I think mahimo dayon ni nato. Naghimo na man ta karon sa 2020 budget, preparahan na ni nato aron mabutang ang operating room, makompleto nato ang mga ekipo ug duna na usab tay surgeon nga ma-assign dinhi,” Garcia said
(I think we can do this. We should prepare now the 2020 budget for the hospital. We should make the budget for it now so that we can have an operating room with complete equipment. We can also have a surgeon who can be assigned there.)
Garcia is in a two-day visit in Bantayan Island for a series of events sanctioned by the Capitol.
The governor and Representative Janice Salimbangon of Cebu’s fourth district signed a memorandum of understanding for the allocation of P6-million funding for the medical assistance of patients in the provincial and district hospitals in the fourth district./dbs