PGH: Hospital for the Poor No More
Employees, health groups oppose hospital fee
increases
The
management of the country’s premier public hospital said that there is a
need to increase fees to have funds for improving facilities and services.
Various groups, however, argued that increasing fees will be done at the
expense of the poor who are supposed to be the main beneficiaries of
public health services.
BY
AUBREY MAKILAN
Bulatlat
The University of the
Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) community and other
health groups last week said that there is no reason for increasing fees
of PGH’s services, arguing that it is being done at the expense of poor
patients.
Rate increases
In a Feb. 8 dialogue
with PGH-based health groups, UP-Manila Chancellor Ramon Arcadio and PGH
Director Carmelo Alfiler said that they will push through with the
imposition of the operating room (OR) fee of P1,500 ($31.05) despite
protests from various groups. In the past, the use of the OR was free.
Present in the
dialogue included representatives of the UP Manila Coalition against PGH
Rates Increases, All-UP Workers Union (AUPWU), All-UP Academic Employees
Union and the associations of physicians, nurses, nursing attendants and
utility workers.
In end-January, the
planned rate increases for blue card acquisition and medical certificate
releasing were deferred. The payment for the blue card – which every
patient should have to transact with PGH – was supposed to increase by
114% from P7 to P15 ($0.14 to $0.31). On the other hand, the “fast-lane”
payment for getting a medical certificate was proposed to be increased by
400% from P20 to P100 ($0.41 to $2.07).
The UP-PGH’S rate
increase proposals were made immediately after the UP Board of Regents’ (BOR)
approval of the tuition increase for incoming freshmen students.
During the BOR’s 1216th
meeting on Dec. 15, the highest policy-making body of the UP did not only
approve a 233-percent hike in tuition and miscellaneous fees. The BOR also
ruled that “tuition will be subsequently adjusted annually based on the
national inflation rate.”
At whose expense?
With the proposed
P1,500 ($31.05) OR fee, the administration would not give up the projected
annual income of about P16 million ($331,228.65), said Jossel Ebesate,
president of AUPWU and secretary-general of the Alliance of Health Workers
(AHW).
According to Ebesate,
the administration claimed that the income will be allocated for the
development efforts of the hospital.
“Profit at whose
expense?” he asked. “Hindi tama na ang development efforts to
improve facilities and services ay kukunin mo sa patients na
dapat ay sineserbisyuhan mo.” (It is not right that development
efforts to improve facilities and services will be sourced from patients
whom you are supposed to serve.)
PGH has 500 pay beds,
800 charity beds and 200 special beds or for the intensive care unit
(ICU). PGH accommodates about 1,500 patients every day in the out-patient
department (OPD) and 350 patients every day in the emergency room (ER).
Most of these patients, Ebesate said, are charity patients.
At first, the PGH
management claimed that only holders of the Philippine Health Insurance,
Inc. (PhilHealth) card would be required to pay the OR fee. However, since
70 percent of patients undergoing surgical operations are not covered by
PhilHealth, Ebesate said that everybody will now be affected by the
imposition of the OR fee.
In case of non-PhilHealth
coverage, patients will be assessed by the hospital’s social service which
will then find donors to help them. If no donor is found, Ebesate said
that the OR fee would be waived. His group, however, doubt if this will be
implemented.
In many cases,
Ebesate said that nurses and physicians shoulder the charges passed on
even to poorest-of-the-poor patients. “Wala pa nga ‘yung OR fee,
hindi na kaya ng mga pasyente ‘yung mga (simpleng) bayarin. Paano pa kapag
nagtaas na?” (Even now that there is no OR fee, patients cannot afford
basic fees. What more if the fees increase?)
Wrong priority
Ebesate, chief nurse
of the PGH nursing service, said that it is not true that there is no fund
available for health services. “Mali lang ang priority,” (The
priority is wrong) he said, citing misappropriations in the national
budget as a result of higher allocation for debt service and military
expenditures.
Since 1983, Ebesate
said that the PGH budget for personnel services (PS) and maintenance and
other operating expenses (MOOE) has never reached P1 billion ($20.7
million). Their actual computations showed that they need about P2 billion
($41.4 million).
He said that the PGH
has been generating income to augment the government’s meager budgetary
allocation. From three percent in the past, Ebesate said that PGH has been
earning 30 percent of its total budget at present.
To show their firm
opposition to the rate increases, Ebesate said that all groups of the UP-PGH
plan to stage mass actions at the offices of concerned government agencies
like the Departments of Budget and Management (DBM) and Finance (DOF).
Bulatlat
(Computation of
dollar equivalents based on an exchange rate of P48.305 per US dollar)
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