Megawide terminates contract with DOH over Orthopedic Center

Philippine Orthopedic Center on Banawe st., Quezon City. Photo from https://en.wikipedia.org

MANILA, Philippines — Megawide World Citi Consortium Inc. (MWCCI) has terminated its contract with the Department of Health for the modernization of the Philippine Orthopedic Center (POC).
In a statement, Megawide said the decision was driven by the two-year delay in the awarding of the Certificate of Possession, among others, “and not one that was made lightly.”

“We participated in the tender with the belief that our fellow Filipinos deserve an efficient hospital facility to complement the care and service already shown by the staff of POC,” Megawide said.

In a separate statement, Health Secretary Janette Garin explained “DOH cannot abandon its duty of ensuring care for our indigent patients in the Philippine Orthopedic Center if their place of transfer cannot be ensured.”

“Furthermore, it will be unfair to expect Megawide to shoulder the cost of caring for our indigent patients, and be obligated to absorb all displaced employees pending approval of a new law in Congress to create the rehabilitation hospital,” Garin said.

She stressed that what happened was an “isolated case.”

“Megawide looks forward to other Public-Private Partnership (PPP) agreements that the DOH will offer,” Garin added.

Megawide said that “despite difficulties, it is a project that we continue to believe in. We continue to support the DOH and this Administration in their vision for inclusive healthcare for all Filipinos.”

The DOH said the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) agreement between DOH and Megawide was signed last March 2014.

The agreement aims to plan, design, construct, and operate a 700-bed specialty orthopedic hospital inside the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) in Quezon City.

“Since March 2014 until Secretary Enrique T. Ona resigned, DOH was not able to issue a Certificate of Possession because the land is owned by NKTI. While DOH sits in the Board of NKTI, it failed to convince the management of the said hospital to allow the use of their land for the proposed Public-Private Partnership (PPP) project,” the DOH said.

It added that Garin, who assumed as acting health secretary in October 2014, also failed to secure the consent of NKTI management for the use of its land for the proposed PPP project.

“There were other issues that became a hurdle to the implementation of the project by the DOH, such as (i) the displacement of current POC employees; (ii) the implementation of the PhilHealth new case rates policy in mid-2014; and (iii) the difficulty/delay in appointing the independent consultant, all of which were unanticipated by the DOH and which negatively affected the implementation of the project,” the DOH said.

“Furthermore, the proposed rehabilitation hospital that will house the displaced employees of the Philippine Orthopedic Center is still being deliberated in Congress. All of these contributed to the decision of Megawide to terminate the Build Operate and Transfer Agreement (BOT) Agreement on the modernization of POC,” it added.  SFM