Tuesday, September 16, 2008 CH to have CCMC appraised to get best deal for City
LIKE what the interested buyers are doing, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña wants a private appraisal firm to assess the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) so the City can get the best price for it.
A team was also created to closely study the City’s other available options for public health care services if the sale pushes through.
In his news conference yesterday, Osmeña said he does not agree with the hospital management’s proposal to implement an across-the-board increase of hospital fees.
Instead, CCMC should consider the individual paying capacity of each patient.
“The role of the government is to help the poor guy get a service when he can’t get it anywhere else... Increasing the fees is not exactly a step in the right direction,” Osmeña said yesterday.
CCMC Acting Chief Dr. Myrna Go earlier said they will ask the City Council to allow them to increase fees for hospital services, and to charge for consultations and emergency room services that are offered for free at present.
This will help them defray the cost of hospital supplies and medicines, so they can improve their services and help more indigent patients.
“If the patient has no money, what will you do? Let him die? What should be done is to find a mechanism to determine the paying capacity of each patient. Ug unsay ilang makaya (what they can afford), then we collect, not put an across-the-board increase,” Osmeña said.
He said that increasing hospital fees will not solve the problem within the CCMC.
Even if the City had P100 million to spare to build a brand new hospital, Osmeña said he would not waste so much money if it will be run by the same personnel running the CCMC.
Outdated
The construction of a new building was proposed earlier after City Hall’s engineers detected structural defects on one part of the building.
“But they said it’s okay as long as you don’t overload it. That’s one of the main concerns. It’s getting old, it’s getting outdated and the capacity is not enough. Clearly something has to be done,” the mayor said, adding that this is one of the reasons why he is keen on selling the facility.
He confirmed yesterday that officials of Harlemermeer City in the Netherlands were about to send two container vans of donated equipment for the CCMC, but apparently had second thoughts when they learned of the proposal to sell the hospital.
But the mayor said he would not let two container vans affect his decisions. (LCR)
