CCMC not so bad, needs more funds

CEBU - Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s consultant on hospital management has contradicted the pronouncement that the Cebu City Medical Center is performing very poorly.

During yesterday’s city council session, Dr. Rodolfo Roman Bigornia, said that the mortality rate of the CCMC is in fact much lower compared to some private hospitals in Cebu.

Dr. Bigornia also said he is not in favor that the 47-year old hospital would be sold just because of its failure to adequately provide medical services to the poor city dwellers.

He instead he suggested to the city council yesterday to provide funds for capital outlay, which is what the CCMC badly needs.

The capital outlay would be used to purchase medical equipment or repair the hospital building. 

The city has stopped allocating funds for capital outlay of the hospital since 2003.

This non-inclusion of funds for capital outlay has surprised Vice Mayor Michael Rama, because every time that the council would deliberate on the annual budget, no hospital official had informed them about it.

Rama also learned — when he scanned the old documents about the creation of the CCMC, formerly the Cebu City General Hospital, that facility is supposed to have a board of directors composed of a councilor, the chief of hospital, the budget officer and some others to act as its policy-making body.

Bigornia stressed to the council that the CCMC needs more funds because the annual P140 million (not P160M) budget mostly goes to salaries of the employees.

Despite the limited budget, the CCMC served a total of 130,533 patients in 2006, and the number increased to 134,090 in 2007.

From January to June this year, there were already 68,524 patients that had been served by the CCMC, said Bigornia.

CCMC’s budget appropriation from the city in 2006 was P128.9 million and it was increased to P139.5 million in 2007.

The hospital also collected P41.2 million in 2006 and P44.7 million in last year from its patients, who paid for the medicine that they had used.

Most of the patients of the CCMC could not afford to pay their bills that is why Bigornia said they just waived the payment for P54.1 million-worth of medicine and services in 2006, then P50.1 million in 2007 and P30.6 million for the first six months this year.

Rama believes that some of the patients could afford to pay their bills, but they just choose not to pay it thinking that it is a government-run hospital and they should not be billed.

The vice mayor said that the board of directors for the hospital must be formed in order to improve the services of the 200-bed medical center.

Rama also assured Bigornia that the city would look into the problem about the capital outlay and even scheduled another meeting with CCMC officials next month.

Bigornia said he could not blame the mayor if he is already fed up of the reports about the poor performance of the CCMC, but he believes that the hospital’s performance will greatly improve if its budget would be increased.

Aside from Bigornia, hospital chief Myrna Go and some other section heads of the hospital, also appeared during the session yesterday.

It was, however, only Bigornia, who was allowed to speak.

For his part, Councilor Rodrigo Abellanosa suggested that the patients of the CCMC should be required to pay their bills, but it should be cheaper as compared to the amount in private hospitals.

The barangay officials were asked by Rama to do their part by submitting a list of residents of their respective barangays, who are considered poor to exempt them from payment.

Rama encouraged the hospital personnel to improve the way they would handle the patients without bias for economic status.

Osmeña said if the hospital will continue to perform poorly, he might be convinced to sell the CCMC to any interested buyer.

The University of San Carlos, which needs a training hospital for its nursing students, has already expressed interest on the facility. — NLQ (The Freeman)