Tuesday, November 25, 2008 Mike prefers joint venture for CCMC
ACTING Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama will focus on improving the management and services at the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC), and not on selling the 47-year-old facility.
Rama said yesterday that Mayor-on-leave Tomas Osmeña gave him a free hand in addressing the problems at the CCMC, and that he prefers to fix the problems instead of selling it.
Among his proposed solutions is to hire an expert who was once connected with the City Government to address management problems and institute reforms in the hospital.
Rama said, though, that offers to buy CCMC will continue to be accepted and reviewed by the City Government “because we can always make other arrangements with them.
Last August, the University of San Carlos (USC) expressed their interest to buy the hospital and sent an independent appraisal team to assess the facilities, personnel and financial records of the hospital.
Selling
“I don’t want to talk about selling because if you start talking about selling, it will only create a misinterpretation. Right now, what is needed at CCMC is for people there to do their job. Whoever is interested, let them be interested and let it be studied because for all you know, the recommendation might be not to buy but other arrangements, like a joint venture,” Rama told reporters yesterday.
City Administrator Francisco Fernandez said in a separate interview yesterday that he has not heard from USC yet regarding the results of their due diligence studies.
The University of Cebu and business tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan, the owner of PLDT and Smart Communications, also expressed their interest to buy CCMC.
Help
Rama said that if they are still interested in CCMC, the City Government may tap them to help run the hospital.
But in the meantime, he and the city councilors will come up with plans on how to improve CCMC at their own level.
“Before Tommy left he told me, ‘Okay Mike, it’s your call now. Take care of CCMC, you now have to address CCMC.’ I’ve been telling him a long time ago that I want to get involved in CCMC but of course that was his call. Now I have to come in and CCMC is one of the priorities. We, the group running the City, should address it,” he told a news conference. (LCR)
