City Council wants waiting area for patient’s companion at VSMMC

CEBU, Philippines —  The Cebu City Council has called on the Committee on Health, Hospital Services and Sanitation to provide a waiting area for persons accompanying the patients at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC).

The council approved recently a resolution sponsored by Councilor Jose Lorenzo Abellanosa regarding the matter. The VSMMC is a government-owned tertiary medical center that provides health care services and caters to patients of all socio-economic backgrounds.

Abellanosa said the accessibility, affordability, and the variety of health care services provided by VSMMC attract patients from different parts of the Province of Cebu as well as surrounding provinces.

He said the patient is usually accompanied by another person, usually a relative, who has to travel from their hometown to tend to the needs of the patient as well as comply with the documentary requirements necessary for the patient’s hospitalization.

The councilor added that these persons who accompany the patients are not allowed or cannot stay in the hospital ward, and there is no facility or shed in hospital where these companions can stay, stressing that these persons are also underprivileged and not financially capable of staying in a hotel or any rented place while serving their respective patients confined in the hospital.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, the hospital administration implemented restrictions that would prohibit persons, other than the patients, from staying inside the hospital ward.

“Such economic and financial limitations usually leave these accompanying persons no option but to stay and wait for their patients in the streets outside of the hospital,” said Abellanosa.

Abellanosa emphasized that the unsanitary and inconvenient conditions in the streets where the said accompanying persons usually stay while waiting for the patients and the interactions they have with the patients in the hospital pose a serious risk of transmission of diseases, including COVID-19.

“There is a compelling need to provide these persons accompanying the patients a waiting area where they could stay while the patients are recovering in the hospital,” said Abellanosa.

“The construction of a waiting facility or allocation of a waiting area in the hospital or in another building where these persons could stay while waiting for the patients' recovery shall serve as a model for all other public hospitals once constructed,” he added.

Section 16 of Local Government Code of 1991, or Republic Act No. 7160, grants every local government unit the power and authority to promote the general welfare within their respective territorial jurisdiction by promoting health and safety and preserving the comfort and convenience of their inhabitants, among others. — FPL (FREEMAN)