City hospital head turns to DOH for P300M aid

Money sought for CCMC expansion, medical equipment

With no grant from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) is turning to the Department of Health for financial assistance.

But CCMC chief Dr. Gloria Duterte said their request for a P300 million financial assistance was cut to P50 million. The P300 million would have been used to fund the hospital’s expansion with P100 million for medical equipment.

Duterte said among their priorities is the purchase of a computerized tomography (CT) scanner and a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. Part of the P50 million would be budgeted for the MRI scanner.

Duterte said the P200 million budget was denied because the program of works and estimates (POWE) was rushed. She said they will file another fund request before February next year.

JICA disapproved the CCMC’s request for a $10 million grant because they were focusing on sewage systems, not hospitals. Despite this, Duterte said the CCMC will soon computerize its hospital transactions.

“We already have the hardware for the system. Technicians are already working on the cables that will connect CCMC to City Hall through the information system,” she said.

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras have already been installed in the hospital’s building, Duterte said. She said they will soon install a centralized piped oxygen distribution system for the hospital./Correspondent Jose Santino S. Bunachita