DOH: Poor patients to benefit from hospital modernization

MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Health (DOH) has assured charity patients that they would still be accommodated even if plans of the government to privatize the Philippine Orthopedic Center (POC) were to push through.

Health Secretary Enrique Ona said the hospital’s indigent patients would not be left out, stressing that 70 percent of its beds would be allotted for the sponsored programs of the state-owned Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

“This one is very clear-cut. Of the 700 beds, 70 percent or more than 400 shall be allocated for the [PhilHealth] sponsored programs,” Ona told reporters in a recent interview.

The health chief also clarified that under the PhilHealth program, patients would not be obliged to pay anything.

“Under the program, it is ‘no balance billing’ for all its members [so] that means everything will be taken care of by PhilHealth and patients will not be billed beyond what PhilHealth is required to pay by law,” Ona explained.

The P5.6-billion modernization program for the POC, the first government hospital to be privatized, is under the Aquino government’s public-private partnership scheme. The project was awarded to Megawide Construction Corp. and World Citi Consortium.

A multisectoral group earlier this month filed a petition in the Supreme Court, asking it to stop the government from pushing through with the project.

But Ona said the POC, which is the country’s only hospital specializing in orthopedic disorders, would not be privatized per se as the DOH would continue to oversee its management.