Opponents of ‘privatized’ orthopedic center taking fight to SC

A group of health workers is set to file a complaint over what they considered the “privatization” of the Philippine Orthopedic Center (POC), the only specialized orthopedic tertiary care government hospital in the country.

The Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) will file the complaint in the Supreme Court tomorrow, according to the Churchpeople Workers Solidarity (CWS), which is supporting the move.

“We are inviting church people to support the filing of this formal suit in the Supreme Court,” the CWS said in an article posted on the website of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).

The CWS raised objections to the Aquino administration’s approval of the POC privatization, describing it as one of the government’s “worst gifts to the Filipino people.”

The group warned of its “terrifying effects” on the poor, noting that some 450 to 500 indigent patients currently avail themselves of free services daily in the POC outpatient department.

Essentially abandonment

They said 80 to 90 percent of the hospitalized patients are poor and depend only on free medicines, supplies and procedures available in the hospital.

“It is essentially government’s abandonment of its social responsibility to provide public health to the poor people,” said Sister Lydia Lascano, CWS convener.

POC employees also remain restive despite assurances from the government that they will keep their jobs.

In an earlier statement, AHW president Sean Herbert Velchez noted that the more than 1,000 hospital workers had become uncertain about their future.

But Health Secretary Enrique Ona, in a previous interview, brushed off such fears.

‘They will not lose jobs’

“That’s the problem. We’ve been explaining to them but they don’t want to listen…They will not lose their jobs,” he said.

The Department of Health (DOH) said the P5.6-billion upgrade of the POC would not only increase its bed capacity but also offer more space for indigent patients and more affordable services.

Greenlighted by President Benigno Aquino in September 2012, the upgrade was promoted as the first health-related project under the Aquino administration’s public-private sector partnership (PPP) scheme.

The DOH said it expected construction to start in 2014 and completion in May 2016.