Wednesday, September 03, 2008 City Hall to keep P160M budget
THE Cebu City Government is not trying to do away with allocating P160 million for health service so it is selling the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC), Mayor Tomas Osmeña assured yesterday.
The City, he said, will still set aside the same amount each year for an insurance system patterned after the Philhealth model.
“The budget for CCMC will not be diverted (to other uses). It will always be there…(but) I don’t think we are getting our money’s worth,” he said in explaining the reason for the plan to sell the 47-year-old hospital.
“I know this is an unpopular decision…but my job is to do it and see to it that what has to be done should be done,” he added.
Wife’s experience
Yesterday, he invited his wife Margot, who told reporters the experiences of her friends and those whom she knew with the hospital.
Foremost among those she cited was the incident involving her driver, who was bumped by a car and died in the ambulance because it took hours for CCMC to have him undergo a scan in a private hospital.
“The (driver’s) wife was there pleading, and the Eruf (Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation ambulance) was waiting. They waited for three hours…my driver died in the ambulance,” she said.
She also mentioned a friend representing a foundation that donated equipment to the CCMC pediatric ward.
Margot said that when the person visited the hospital supposedly for another set of donations, she was exasperated to learn that the equipment that were earlier donated were unused and were just stashed in the bodega.
A friend whose worker went to the hospital was allegedly scolded for informing that he was not treated properly.
“The people who are there don’t have money, so why should you slap it on their faces that they don’t have money?” Margot said.
Dedication
She, however, said that there are still many good and dedicated doctors, nurses, and hospital staff at the CCMC who religiously attend to their work and whose deeds were just glossed over by the negative reports on the hospital.
The mayor assured that those “good people” will be automatically hired.
But he made it clear that “the job of the mayor is not to sacrifice people’s money just to help those good people.”
“My job is how to make people’s money offer service more efficiently,” he said.
He also said that in three to four years, good and idealistic people who enter the hospital and get exposed will get absorbed by its system.
The mayor said that most of the services CCMC offers can be done in birthing centers, so the City will develop more of them.
“There is no future in CCMC…I just want the service to get better,” Os-meña said.
The University of San Carlos has shown interest to purchase the hospital.
But sale of the CCMC has to undergo bidding and should have concurrence from the Commission on Audit. (RHM)
