Council shuns CCMC demolition

THE Cebu City Council and Mayor Michael Rama are at loggerheads on the fate of the Cebu City Medical Center.

The City Council, which is dominated by councilors belonging to the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK), wants the 45-year-old city hospital retrofitted.

Rama earlier said he wants to have the CCMC bulldozed and to construct a new building in its place.

Councilor Gerardo Carillo said retrofitting the CCMC is less costly and is easier to do compared to demolishing the building.

“There is no need to spend P1.5 billion after all,” he said in an executive session with the city’s Department of Engineering and Public Works (DEPW) yesterday afternoon.

Carillo would have wanted to pass a resolution asking city engineers to prepare a program of work and estimates for the retrofitting of CCMC and change in hospital layout, which is estimated to cost at least P25 million, but their lack of quorum postponed the plan.

Carillo said he will include his proposed resolution in next week’s session.

Rama announced after the October 15 earthquake that he wants the CCMC building demolished so that a new hospital may be built to replace the unsafe hospital building.

City Engineer Kenneth Carmelita Enriquez told the council of the presence of “significant cracks” in the hospital’s hallway, near the stairway and at the female surgical ward.

Engr. Ariel dela Cruz, the city’s structural consultant, said that the 45-year-old hospital building does not conform to the Structural Code of the Philippines.

Emergency only

The CCMC has been accepting emergency cases only since Oct. 21.

The chapel in the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) compound that served as a makeshift nursery and pediatric ward for the displaced patients of Cebu City Medical Center has been vacated.

Patients have been transferred to Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VCMMC) and other private hospitals since last week.