It’s final: Fabella hospital will move

It’s final: The aging Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital will be moving to a new home.

Amid opposition from various groups, the hospital management has decided to push through with the modernization and transfer of the 65-year-old maternal health facility to avert possible accidents that may occur due to the reduced structural integrity of the buildings.

In a press briefing yesterday, Fabella hospital director Dr. Esmeraldo Ilem said the decision was arrived at by the management following a signature campaign among the 1,200 hospital employees that started after a referendum was halted.

He said at least 600 employees have signed up to the campaign for the transfer and modernization of the Fabella hospital, the go-to maternity of the poor. The rest were either opposed to the plan, did not have time to participate as they were on duty or off from work or hands off on the issue, said Ilem.

The new Fabella hospital will be transferred to a six-story, 700-bed capacity building inside the Department of Health (DOH) compound once construction is finished in May 2017.

It is expected to complete the proposed tri-medical complex in the DOH headquarters, where San Lazaro Hospital and Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center are located.

Under the modernization plan, the hospital will temporarily operate in the three-story building at the Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP) in Quezon City, which was originally built in 2012 as a satellite outpatient department building of Fabella.

Ilem said patients who cannot be accommodated in the temporary site will be referred to hospitals near the old Fabella hospital like the Philippine General Hospital, Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center and San Lazaro Hospital.

“For employees who don’t want to be assigned in Quezon City due to distance, they can choose to be assigned to any of these hospitals until the transfer to the new building next year,” Ilem told reporters.

In the same press briefing, Undersecretary for Health Regulation Kenneth Hartigan-Go appealed to the humanitarian sensibility of the protesters blocking the transfer of apparatuses to the temporary site at LCP.

“We don’t want to go into a more aggressive move. We can appeal to their sense of sensibility and humanitarian approach,” said Go.

Last week, Health Secretary Janette Garin decided to leave the decision of Fabella’s transfer in the hands of the management and employees by calling for a referendum in the face of resistance by some groups.