THE Senate Committee on Health and Demography already approved the House Bill 6731 authored by Representative Greg Gasataya along with Senate Bill 1647, which was filed by Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, establishing the Bacolod City General Hospital.
Gasataya said the Senate Committee on Health and Demography chaired by Senator Christopher Lawrence Go approved the bill during its hearing Monday afternoon, October 19.
"After the approval, they will make a committee report and it will be forwarded to the Senate Plenary for the second reading," he said.
In July, Zubiri has filed House Bill 1647, a bill establishing a general hospital in the City of Bacolod to be known as the Bacolod City General Hospital.
Zubiri said this bill seeks to establish the Bacolod City General Hospital in the City of Bacolod, which is envisioned to provide health care to the people of Bacolod City.
He said Bacolod City is one of the most populated cities in the country with 561, 875 residents as per the 2015 national census, which makes this bustling metropolis the most populated city in Western Visayas and second in the whole of Visayas.
"Currently, the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH) is the only tertiary government hospital that caters to the whole of Negros Occidental. With only 400-bed capacity that serves a daily average of 724 patients from the whole province, the CLMMRH clearly needs to decongest its load to attend to the needs of its growing number of patients," he added.