CEBU Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia has fired a warning at the medical personnel, particularly doctors in provincial hospitals, who referred patients to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) despite their capacity to treat certain diseases.
Garcia gave the stern warning during her meeting with the mayors, representatives of the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH 7), municipal and city health officers, and representatives of the district and provincial hospitals concerning the e-referral system at the Capitol Social Hall on Wednesday, August 24, 2022.
This after VSMMC Chief Gerardo Aquino Jr. identified the top 10 referring hospitals in the entire Cebu Province as having referred a total of 6,419 patients to the VSMMC from January to June 30 this year.
Garcia said they will investigate who were the doctors on duty and those who referred the patients to VSMMC, whose diseases were “manageable” at the provincial level based on the VSMMC’s data.
“Well, expect a meeting nga makig-atubang ko kadtong mga moderetso lang og refer nga kaya ra gyud unta on provincial level,” said Garcia, adding that the provincial government had invested a lot of money for their salary yet they seemed to operate like clinics.
(Expect a meeting where I will face those who just directly refer patients to VSMMC when they had the capability to treat the cases on the provincial level.)
“Warningi na lang ni sila daan, para dili na ni magpadayon kay this is such a shameful and greedy habit at the expense of our people. Ang mga Sugbuanon na ani maoy makalolooy tungod kay gitapol, pero wa tapola sige dawat og dagkong sweldo,” she added.
(Warn these people in advance, so that they will no longer continue because this is such a shameful and greedy habit at the expense of our people. The Cebuanos are pitiful because their doctors are lazy to work but they don’t tire of receiving big salaries.)
Top 10 hospitals
Under the list entitled “Top 10 Referring Hospitals,” Aquino said the DOH 711 hotline was on top of the list with 2,294 referrals, followed by Lapu-Lapu City Hospital with 815 referrals; Eversley Childs Sanitarium and General Hospital in Mandaue City, 732 referrals; Cebu Provincial Hospital (CPH)-Danao, 649 referrals, and Cebu South Medical Center (the former Talisay District Hospital), 417 referrals.
Ranking sixth to tenth were the Mandaue City Hospital, 364 referrals; CPH Carcar, 336 referrals; CPH Bogo, 320 referrals; Cebu City Medical Center, 253 referrals; and CPH Balamban, 239 referrals.
The governor noted that nearly half of the 1,544 patients referred from the four provincial hospitals came from the Danao hospital.
E-referral
During the meeting, DOH 7 Director Jaime Bernadas urged the health officers to utilize the electronic referral or e-referral system so that no patient is left unattended.
But some mayors raised their concerns on the slow internet connectivity amid the changes in weather conditions when they use the system apart from receiving no answer or response from the hospitals to which they would want to refer the patients.
Aquino, however, emphasized that there is queuing of patients at VSMMC.
He explained that they have only 600 beds that can be used although they have a 1,500-bed capacity, considering that the level of the license to operate issued by the DOH also lies in their manpower.
But in case of emergency, Bernadas said, hospitals can directly call #0711, which is the one health command center of DOH, and immediately transport the patients to VSMMC.
Should the VSMMC already be full, Bernadas said #0711 can look for other government hospitals where they can refer the patient.
Garcia urged VSMMC to reserve slots for patients coming from Cebu Province, particularly those from northern and southern hospitals.
In response, Aquino said they will look for a formula on how to cater to patients from Cebu Province, particularly those from afar.
Under the e-referral system, patients are referred directly to the health facility in the system. E-referral views, accepts and redirects referrals from other health facilities. It tracks a patient’s referral pathway until the patient is referred back to his or her own rural health unit.
Under the system, the referring facility should wait for the patient to be accepted by a health facility before transporting the patient there.
As for those receiving notifications for incoming referrals, they have two options: to accept the referral or reject the referral by redirecting it, which means recommending to refer the patient to another facility.