Location, location

With the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) basically affirming Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama’s position that the city doesn’t need to secure a permit to raise funds for building a new city hospital, it seems to be smooth sailing from hereon.

Or not. While the Cebu City Council is reluctant about raising funds for the project, the majority Bando Osmena-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) bloc is giving way anew to their founder, former congressman Tomas Osmena’s argument that the city hospital should be relocated anywhere but the South Road Properties (SRP).

While we know Osmena’s zeal in protecting the SRP, we have to listen to Mayor Rama’s argument about building the new city hospital in the SRP, the city’s prime real estate.

There’s the disclosure of Rama’s assistant Jose Daluz III that the loan agreement signed between the Japanese government and Cebu City allows the use of 50 hectares for government buildings, like say the city government depot, SRP office and (perhaps) a new city hospital.

Rama may sometimes get carried away with his broad, slogan-filled presentations of a sustainable, high-growth Cebu City but based on Daluz’s point alone, City Hall would have a few problems setting up a new hospital in SRP.

City Hall has also set up a tent city with the Philippine Red Cross as shelters to be occupied by typhoon survivors.

Osmeña expressed concern that this too may affect affect long term investor preferences in the 300-hectare SRP.

We don’t know how long the tent city will be used for displaced storm victims. It’s hard to say when these evacuees would return to Leyte and Samar.

The City Council is unlikely to assist Mayor Rama’s plan for a long-running evacuee center at the SRP and a new 1,000-bed hospital would take time to finance.

But this early, selecting a final venue for the city hospital is essential to move plans forward.

Indigent city residents, in need of medical care, continue to endure the spartan conditions of a temporary hospital crammed near the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) building.

There’s not enough space in the Vicente Sotto Medical Center, which already handles cases from various towns and cities of Cebu province and the region.

Rama can bring the issue directly to the people, something he’s already doing with his “Piso Mo, Hospital Ko” donation drive.

The city administration could widen the effort with an online campaign to check public opinion on where residents want the new CCMC to be located.