Davide: Outsourcing medical staff to stop

The contracts of outsourced personnel in Capitol’s district hospitals may no longer be renewed once these expire in February next year.

Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III said outsourcing costs more in terms of salaries.

“As of now, we are still discussing how to go about with the personnel. Initially, we saw that it is more costly to the Provincial Government if we outsource because there are still other companies involved,” the governor said.

“That’s not final yet, but eventually the direction is, outsourcing will not anymore be practiced,” he added.

The governor, in his 2014 budget message, said his administration will focus on the hiring of more medical personnel and develop them for capacity building.

Although budgets for district hospitals are smaller in the proposed allocation for 2014 compared to the previous year’s, Davide yesterday said these budgetary items are still augmented by the Annual Investment Plan (AIP).

“The impression on reports is that we lowered the budget for hospitals. We actually allocated a portion of the AIP for healthcare and not from the general fund. In the AIP we have funds,” he added.

Under the AIP, budget for hospitals, birthing centers and animal care facilities was given P73 million, P54 million of which is for the purchase of new hospital equipment.

Next is the construction and repair of hospitals with a P10 million budget, followed by P5 million for hospital equipment and another P5 million for medical laboratory equipment.

In Davide’s proposed 2014 annual budget, district and provincial hospitals were given 294.7 million or P134 million lower than the P429.5 million budget for this year.

All district hospitals in the province received smaller allocations except for the Juan Diosdado Memorial Hospital in Sogod town whose budget went up by a million pesos./Correspondent Peter L. Romanillos