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Thursday, August 03, 2006
Editorials: CCMC problem
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña making the pitch now for the Provincial Capitol to take over the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) is surprising considering the timing.
Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia is still fleshing out the details of the plan to transfer from the Department of Health (DOH) to the Province the primary and secondary services of the Vicente Sotto Medical Center (VSMMC), another major health facility.
Accepting the CCMC offer, therefore, will only place a bigger burden on the Province and complicate preparations for the implementation of the VSMMC deal.
So it is possible the mayor wasn’t actually expecting much from the offer and was merely reiterating his wish for City Hall to be freed of the burden of maintaining a facility whose service he feels, rightly or wrongly, leaves much to be desired.
An improvement
But while some people may be saddened by Osmeña’s fresh tirades, they should consider the plan as an improvement from the previous push to close CCMC.
Transferring ownership, if the new owner continues hospital operation and shows hints it can manage the facility well, is definitely better than outright closure.
It is even a superior alternative to the mayor’s idea that instead of spending money to operate a public medical center, he would rather distribute Philhealth cards to the poor to allow them to avail of the services of private hospitals.
While the scheme is also a good election ploy, it will benefit only a few, possibly politically favored, people and won’t be effective considering the high cost of the services of private hospitals and the limited monetary value of Philhealth cards.
Attitudinal problem
Sadly, however, Capitol taking over CCMC won’t happen even in the foreseeable future, which again leaves the continued operation of the public hospital in limbo.
Which brings us to the only viable option, which is for the mayor to deal with the CCMC problem squarely and not look away, or pass the problem on to another local government unit or worse escape responsibility by closing the hospital.
CCMC is not a hopeless case; it only looks so because Osmeña is taunting at the sidelines and seemingly praying for the facility’s fall instead of getting into the core of the matter and offering solutions---which is part of his job in the first place.
The problem is as much the attitude of CCMC personnel as that of the mayor.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 3, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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