SOME 13,000 patients have received help with their hospital bills since the Malasakit Center was launched in the middle of February in the region’s largest public hospital, an official said yesterday.
Special Assistant to the President Christopher “Bong” Go said that a similar center will be launched this week in Tacloban and that other points in the Visayas will be next.
Go also said he will ask the Department of Health (DOH) if similar subsidies can be provided to areas with provincial hospitals.The administration has pledged P50 million a month for the Malasakit Center in Cebu, based in the DOH-operated Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) in Cebu City.
In 2016, VSMMC served 342,665 patients or nearly 29,000 patients, on average, each month. Those were the latest figures available on the hospital’s website.
The Malasakit Center funds are drawn from the socio-civic operations budget of the Office of the President, Go said.
Go disclosed they want to institutionalize Malasakit Center in all government hospitals together with the implementation of the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) programs.
One form
“If we can reduce the number of people without jobs, or increase the income of those with unstable jobs, and at the same time free them from hospital bills, the living condition of the poor families will really be uplifted,” he said.
Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino, in the same discussion with the press in Cebu yesterday, said that the Malasakit Center was meant to ensure that more patients in government hospitals won’t have to worry about raising funds to cover their medical bills.
He said that the center uses “unified forms and unified requirements” to speed up transactions with government agencies like the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. and Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, which also runs a medical assistance program. Dino said that the center was Go’s brainchild.
Senate
Despite his increased visibility, Go said he has not decided yet to run for the Senate in 2019 and that talks about him doing so began with a joke that President Rodrigo Duterte cracked shortly before Go was to appear in a Senate inquiry last February.
When people refer to him as “senator,” Go quipped, “Ang akong tubag, janitor na lang (I tell them I’d rather be the janitor instead). Dili hilas ba.”
About 60 percent of 1,200 respondents told Pulse Asia last March 23-28 that they were aware of who Go was.
Nearly six percent said they would vote for him, which placed Go in 28th to 38th place.
Only three from Mindanao were ranked among the top 12 in that survey: the President’s daughter and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte Carpio, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, and retired Philippine National Police chief Ronald de la Rosa. (IDA with EOB)