South Cotabato hospital expands to decongest facility

KORONADAL CITY — After nearly five years of delay, construction for the four-story building expansion of the South Cotabato Provincial Hospital (SCPH) starts in this city this week.

The P200-million project that broke ground on Friday, Dec. 9, would add 72 more rooms to the 200-room provincial hospital and additional wards for surgery and obstetrics, Dr. Conrado Braña Jr., SCPH director, said.

“It will help decongest our main building and prevent overcrowding of the emergency room, which in the past had forced some of our patients to stay in the roadside covered area,” Braña said.

“This project is long overdue, but we’re happy that the construction will now finally start,” Vice Gov. Arthur Pingoy Jr. said during the site’s blessing and groundbreaking ceremony.

The project, part of the hospital facilities enhancement program of the Department of Health (DOH), was approved in the 2018 budget.

But construction was deferred due to problems with the proposed site behind the SCPH Complex, where the DOH and the provincial government held the project groundbreaking in 2010.

The project’s design-and-build contract was awarded to the construction firm EM Cuerpo Inc.

But in July that year, after a project review and upon his assumption to office, South Cotabato Gov. Reynaldo Tamayo Jr. pushed for the transfer of the proposed site from the crowded SCPH complex to the Productivity and Technology or Protech Center compound just across the street.

Dr. Conrado Braña Jr., SCPH director, said they found out that hospital operations would be hampered if the original plan was pushed through.

He said the allotted area had no evacuation site in case of earthquakes, and construction of the building there would cause the demolition of the hospital’s supply building, gymnasium, and septic tanks of at least 40 comfort rooms.

“When that happens, at least 100 rooms will not be operational during the construction phase, and we cannot sacrifice that,” he told reporters.

He said it took some time for DOH to approve their request to move the project site, putting the project on hold even as some provincial board members stood pat on the original plan.

Pingoy said the project’s status became uncertain as the issue on its site became “politicized.” Allies of the former Gov. Daisy Avance-Fuentes, Tamayo’s rival in the 2019 elections, had opposed the site’s transfer. Fuentes approved the project in 2018, before she lost her bid for a third straight term to Tamayo in 2019.

The provincial board tackled the project in July, and eventually passed an ordinance allotting the Protech Center compound as the project’s expansion site.

“The delayed implementation also delayed the delivery of health services, and (because of that), the people suffered,” said Pingoy.

“This is a good start to improve the delivery of health services in South Cotabato,” he added.

Tamayo also asked to speed up the project’s construction phase from the 600 days, or almost two years, to just 320 days or less than a year. The new hospital building will cover around 3,000 square meters.

A Level II facility, SCPH has a listed capacity of 200 beds, but it accommodates 450 patients daily.

Tamayo is working for additional funds from the national government to augment what they have for the project, according to Braña.

The governor earlier announced that he had secured a commitment from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation for another P200 million to complete the project and upgrade its facilities, which would include the establishment of a molecular laboratory.

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