Gov says he’ll lead ‘riot’ if hospitals sold

BACOLOD CITY—Negros Occidental Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. on Friday said he would oppose bills seeking the privatization of government-owned hospitals as this would deprive the poor access to free hospital services.

“If a bill calls for privatization of hospitals, the people will riot against it and I will lead them,” Marañon said.

Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia also opposed the planned privatization of public hospitals.

The scheme to turn government hospitals into corporations run by the private sector would simply lead to higher fees which would defeat efforts to bring down costs of health services for the poor.

“There are so many poor people who could hardly afford to pay their hospital bills,” he said.

The governor cited the Negros Occidental Comprehensive Health Care Program (NOCHCP) as a model for health care services.

The program, said the governor, had given health coverage to at least 85,000 families or about 425,000 individuals.

From Sept. 18, 2010, to June 30, 2012, he said 15,038 persons covered by the NOCHCP had availed themselves of hospitalization that was estimated to have cost a total of P36.6 million, while outpatients availed of P4.8 million in services for free.

House Bill No. 6069, titled an Act Creating National Government Hospital Corporations authored by Bacolod Rep. Anthony Golez, and Senate Bill No. 3110, or the National Government Hospital Corporate Restructuring Act proposed by Sen. Franklin Drilon, would lead to privatization of hospitals, Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño had warned.

Golez earlier explained that his bill proposed to give 26 national government hospitals, including Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital, the status of corporations that would give them fiscal autonomy.

He said House Bill No. 6069 would allow hospitals to engage in income-generating activities, enabling these to provide more efficient and effective delivery of health care.

In turn, revenue earned by the hospitals could be used to subsidize health services for the poor, Golez said.
The conversion of hospitals into corporations would allow them to be self-reliant and have more than enough funds to be used for health services for the poor, he added.

But in an interview last week, Casiño said the privatization of public hospitals was a “grand disguised privatization scheme” that would enable government to drop its responsibility to provide health care to the people.