AGOO, LA UNION—In the past, patients in remote villages brought vegetables and farm animals to the barangay doctor as payment for medical services.
The practice still flourishes in this agricultural town although with a difference: Instead of seeking medical help from a village doctor working alone, poor patients avail themselves of services of specialists in a medical center with state-of-the-art equipment and facilities.
“We accept payment in kind such as vegetables which are given monetary value. The cost is deducted from the hospital bills of patients. The hospital needs to buy vegetables anyway for the patients’ meals,” said Dr. Fernando Astom, chief executive officer of La Union Medical Center (LUMC).
Those who cannot bring farm produce may render labor instead. “We want to remove the dole mentality. We want the poor patients and their families to have a sense of responsibility,” Astom said.
He said the arrangement was giving patients dignity as they were paying partly for the medical services they were getting.
“They can bring village-mates to clean the buildings and the surroundings in bayanihan fashion, with each person helping pay for the bills by working,” Astom added.
The hospital is known for accepting payment in kind and service, thus patients volunteer to bring vegetables, fruits and fish and to serve in the hospital’s kitchen, laundry or in cleaning the buildings and premises.
Last month, village officials and volunteer workers of Barangay Concepcion in Rosario town cut weeds and grasses and swept the hospital yard for half a day to thank the hospital administration for the medical services granted to their village mates.
When Sanita Quintin, a barangay resident, underwent hysterectomy, she paid P2,000 of the more than P8,000 bill as she was able to use the villagers’ services to pay for the operation.
The grandmother of 9-year-old Alexis de Vera was in a quandary when the girl fell from a carabao (water buffalo) and broke her right arm in January this year.
The grandmother, Nanay Ingga, takes care of the girl whose parents have separated.
Alexis needed three operations and incurred a hospital bill of almost P170,000, including the professional fees of doctors from Manila.
How will the old woman, whose only income comes from farming, pay that?
“She is very poor but a sweet woman. She volunteered to render service to pay part of the expenses. She brought vegetables from her farm as payment,” said Felisa Mamaril, a social welfare officer assigned to the hospital.
Nanay Ingga paid about P11,000 worth of vegetables and services and the balance of the bill was written off by the hospital.
Since April 2002 when the hospital started the scheme for poor patients, payment in kind or services had amounted to P881,594, according to hospital records.
LUMC replaced Dońa Gregoria Memorial Hospital in 2002 as the provincial hospital of La Union. It sits on a 3.7-hectare lot in Nazareno village.
The lot was donated by the European Union during the term of then Gov. Victor Ortega, now representative of the province’s first district. The donation for the buildings and equipment amounted to P650 million.
Ortega’s wife, Mary Jane, former San Fernando City mayor, said there was no way to operate the P650-million medical complex with P35 million, the annual budget of the provincial hospital where everyone was given medical treatment for free.
Ortega hired Astom, then connected with Ilocos Training and Regional Medical Center (ITRMC) in San Fernando, to be the hospital chief.
The two thought of operating the hospital as a corporation and came up with a scheme in which patients are categorized into full-paying, charity and nonpaying patients.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development determines to which group a patient belongs.
