Saturday, August 30, 2008 Editorials: CCMC sale an anti-poor move
CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña may finally get his wish of selling the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) with the interest shown by the administrations of two big universities to buy the facility.
The mayor has been claiming that the sale will unburden the city coffers of the financial load of maintaining the hospital.
What is conveniently left out in that line is the fact that the CCMC, despite the controversies it has been embroiled, has been the last refuge of the poor who are desperate for medical care.
To say that by selling the CCMC is to unburden City Hall is therefore to miss the essence of what governance is about; or why call an important public service a “burden”?
Any official who says that the millions of pesos poured into the CCMC is a waste of resources can be considered anti-poor.
Not beneficial
An argument can be made on the dire financial straits the City Government is in with the (real) “burden” of paying the loan for the South Reclamation Project.
The mayor is obviously eager to lay his hand on bigger revenues from the CCMC sale and use it for whatever project that he feels would have more impact on his constituents, it not serve political ends.
The failure of CCMC personnel to provide the best services to the patients has also made the anti-CCMC propaganda compelling, playing up the negative acts over the positive.
But while selling the CCMC may be beneficial to City Hall and to the buyers---and it can even raise the quality of service of the hospital---if may deprive the really poor of an important government service.
Real mindset
There is no assurance that the new administrators, who will now have to run the facility for profit, won’t convert CCMC into an enclave of the rich and the middle class.
Even Osmeña’s promise of building barangay health centers and issuing health centers cannot make up for the kind of service CCMC has been providing through the years.
With the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center serving mainly patients from the province and other areas in the region, where will Cebu City residents get cheaper medical service?
Selling the hospital instead of finding ways to solve the CCMC mess exposes the real mindset of the people running City Hall.
