Baguio dads want nearby provinces to help finance BGHMC
By Vincent Cabreza
Northern Luzon Bureau
First Posted 22:53:00 02/04/2008
BAGUIO CITY – City officials want Pangasinan, La Union and provinces in Cagayan Valley to help subsidize certain programs of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC) since many of the poor patients from these places were being referred to this facility.
Councilor Erdolfo Balajadia, chair of the council committee on health, sponsored a resolution encouraging the governors and representatives of these provinces to shell out portions of their funds for the hospital.
The resolution was initiated by the hospital’s advisory council, which includes Balajadia, according to its director, Dr. Manuel Factora.
The council feels that the BGHMC has been accepting too many indigents although its annual budget of P70 million has not increased in the past years, he said.
But Factora said these provinces were only being asked to subsidize BGHMC’s programs for the poor. “Around 75 percent of our patients [from these provinces] end up indigent,” he said.
“Before they come here, they spend all their assets on [local hospitals and medicine]. Mga wala nang pera iyan bago iakyat dito kaya dito sila sa program nalalagay (These patients have no money left when they are sent here so they end up in our indigent programs),” he said.
The BGHMC still serves many city residents, Factora said, but the number of patients from the provinces had also increased.
Those from Pangasinan, for example, account for 16-17 percent of the hospital patients, he said. This is because it has become easier for residents of eastern Pangasinan to go to Baguio instead of other hospitals with the same facilities in the province’s urban centers.
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