Gwen mulls early bidding for hospital equipment

Bantayan District Hospital (CDND Photo/Rosalie Abatayo)

CEBU CITY, Philippines  — Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia may not wait until 2020 before she starts the bidding process for the equipment needed in the upgrade of provincial and district hospitals that Capitol operates.

In 2020, the Capitol is expecting funds from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth) to be downloaded to the province’s coffers since Cebu will be one of the pilot areas for the implementation of the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act.

Provincial Treasurer Roy Salubre estimated that PhilHealth may download P4.2 billion for Cebu in 2020.

The amount will be used in the operations of the provincial hospitals in the cities of Danao, Bogo, and Carcar and in Balamban town, as well as the 12 district hospitals.

The province will also acquire new medical equipment and build facilities as necessary upgrades of the hospitals.

While the funds are not yet on hand, the governor said resorting to early procurement will expedite the acquisition process once the funds are available.

“I am already thinking about early procurement. Unsay buot pasabot? I-bid out nato, di lang nato i-award,” Garcia said.

(This means that we will bid out the projects but we will not award the contracts until the fund is available.)

Garcia earlier announced that the Provincial Health Office will be working on upgrading the district hospitals of Bantayan and Camotes Islands into 100-bed capacity medical centers from current 25-bed hospitals.

Garcia said officials from PhilHealth already committed that by the first quarter of 2020, they will download a certain amount to the province. Depending on the utilization of the initial funding, PhilHealth will decide how much more will be downloaded to the province.

According to Garcia, resorting to early procurement is advantageous with the current cash-based policy of the national government where the funds allocated for the year should be utilized within that year, otherwise, it will revert to the national treasury.

Bidding out projects even prior to the availability of the funds may save the provincial government up to three months, the average time of the procurement process from the invitation to bid until the post-qualification survey, the governor said.

Early procurement is allowed under the Government Procurement  Reform Act. It has also been supported by a circular issued by the Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB) in 2018.

“To ensure full budget utilization, timely contract implementation and efficient delivery of services, agencies are authorized to undertake procurement activities from pre-procurement conference until post-qualification of bids based on their proposed budget in the National Expenditure Program, Corporate Operating Budgets or Appropriations Ordinances, in accordance with the guidelines issued by the GPPB,” reads the GPPB Circular 09-2018.

Aside from the estimated P4.2 billion from Philhealth for the implementation of the Universal Healthcare Act, the Capitol also projects to collect reimbursements from the government health insurance company for the services that the hospitals render to paying and non-paying members of Philhealth.

From January to October 2019 alone, the Capitol has collected from Philhealth P370,043,979.

The expected funds from Philhealth for the UHC implementation and the hospital service billings are part of the funding sources for the Capitol’s P12-billion proposed budget for 2020./elb