hospital woes. Councilor Mary Ann Delos Santos, head of City Hall’s hospital ad hoc committee is faced with several issues concerning the current operations and planned rebuilding of the Cebu City Medical Center.
While the Cebu City government envisions building a world-class hospital building for the Cebuanos, the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) currently does not have syringes and plasters.
But the shortage in supply is not due to the lack of funding, but is caused by the management’s failure to spend the allocation, said Councilor Margot Osmeña.
Osmeña said that of this year’s P39 million allocation for medicines, for example, CCMC administration led by hospital chief Gloria Duterte, have so far spent only P12 million.
Even the P2.5 million sustenance for confined patients computed at P60 per day have not been fully utilized.
About P848, 000 of the allocation have remained unobligated as of October 31.
Osmeña said that the P2.7 million allocation for the Guba hospital was also barely used.
“Give me a chance to revisit Guba and CCMC,” Councilor Mary Ann delos Santos, head of the hospital’s adhoc committee, told the Council in yesterday’s budget hearing.
Stuck in BAC
The council also called for an executive session with Duterte and members of the city’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) on Friday to discuss delays in CCMC’s medicine and supplies purchase.
Duterte appeared before the City Council yesterday afternoon to discuss the hospital’s P267.8 million budget request for 2015. The proposal is P33 million less than this year’s annual budget of P302 million.
Duterte said the decrease is because of their operation of a temporary hospital facility that was given a level 1 classification by the Department of Health.
But despite its current status, CCMC which operates in the Bureau of Fire Protection building after its building was totally damaged by the magnitude 7.2 earthquake last year, continues to accommodate at least 217 outpatients and 17 in-patients daily.
Fees
Councilors confronted Duterte on reports that have reached their office on the hospital’s lack of some basic supplies and the professional fees being collected by some of their doctors.
Duterte said that their visiting consultants are the ones who charge professional fees for their services. But she promised the council that they would review their arrangement with their 36 consultants and 32 contractual doctors.
She also admitted that there have been instances where in their patients are asked to buy their own plasters and syringes.
Duterte said they could not purchase in bulk because of the lack of a storage area. She also complained that their purchase request would often get stuck with the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) because of documentation problems.
“What’s the point of having a world class hospital but there is no syringe?” councilor Osmeña asked Duterte.
To remedy the problem, Duterte said, CCMC should be allowed to have its own BAC to take care of their purchases.
Delos Santos said delays in supply and medicine purchases is a “perennial” problems that should already be addressed.
“It’s ironic that we do not have basic supplies like plasters, syringes and gloves,” she added.
She promised to study Duterte’s proposal.
Osmeña also asked Duterte to check with the Government Services Office (GSO) if they could share the use of their warehouse for storage of hospital supplies.
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