Thursday, July 26, 2007 Wenceslao: VSMMC failings By Bong O. Wenceslao Candid Thoughts
ONE can always find horror stories in public hospitals, including of course the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) and the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC). The VSMMC looks better from the outside compared with the CCMC. But the same ills are plaguing the two facilities, only that those of CCMC are probably worse.
I grew up in Sitio Kawayan at the back of the old TB Pavillon complex along B. Rodriguez Ext. That is not far from VSMMC, the Southern Island Hospital of old. Before the advent of trisikads, we would walk to Fuente Osmeña using the shortcut beside the west side of the VSMMC fence. That place is Sitio Mansanitas, if I remember it right.
During my father Tiyong’s productive years as an employee of a soft drinks firm, Chong Hua Hospital, located a stone’s throw away from the VSMMC was his hospital of choice. When he retired and when the cost of medical expenses soared, we shifted to Southern Island. My brother Ebit’s appendix was removed there. My father died there.
I therefore am familiar with the twists and turns of VSMMC through the years, though not as an insider but as an observer.
There has never been a time when most of those who availed of its services were satisfied. Complaints are ordinary. The situation has become so hopeless we have accepted it as ordinary and have become indifferent.
The report, therefore, that VSMMC may have lost P100 million to graft no longer surprised people. No, it was not because Sun.Star’s banner headline competed with stories on President Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address and the tumultuous battle for the post of House Speaker that the report did not get attention. People just didn’t care.
Still, there is the hope that the Commission on Audit (COA) report will push this important facility out of the depths it is now in. I don’t mean that because of this VSMMC will suddenly become the best public hospital in the country. That would be like asking for the moon. I am only hoping its basic failings will be straightened out.
If reports are true that the intention of VSMMC chief Gerardo Aquino is honest, then here’s a pat on the back. With COA’s help, Aquino can plug leaks in the hospital’s finances. That should stabilize its fiscal situation and in turn improve a bit its services. In VSMMC, a bit of improvement is already an achievement.
