City Hall to increase pay of consultants at CCMC

THE monthly honorarium of the 36 doctor-consultants of the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) may soon be increased.

The Cebu City Council wants to make the honorarium they get from the City Government competitive with what the privately owned hospitals pay.

Councilor Ronald Cuenco said the increase is needed because of the disparity between the pay the City gives its consultants, with that of the privately owned facilities.

Each doctor-consultant at CCMC gets an honorarium that ranges from P4,000 to P18,000 per month, while the pay given by privately owned facilities to their consultants reportedly reaches P50,000 monthly.

Cuenco also said the increase is but proper, considering that the consultants at CCMC have no longer been allowed by the City to collect professional fees, following complaints from the city’s indigents.

Some doctors reportedly used to charge patients a P15,000 professional fee for their services.

Councilor Cuenco, who heads the council’s committee on health, hospital services, and sanitation, fears the CCMC might run out of doctor-consultants, who might work for private facilities instead.

Consultants at CCMC are the ones who also train the resident doctors of the government hospital.

In the present set-up, doctor-consultants who have also been designated as heads of the various departments of CCMC get an honorarium ranging from P15,000 to P18,000.

Those under them get less.

Councilors Augustus Pe Jr. and Rodrigo Abellanosa also favor the proposal to increase the consultants’ honorarium.

Councilor Noel Wenceslao then asked if there will be no budget constraints on the planned increase, saying it’s not covered under the P5.2-billion approved budget of the City for this year.

During their session in July, the council tasked Councilor Margarita Osmeña, who heads the council’s committee on budget and finance, to look for funds for the honoraria increase.