IPHO Head Proposes To Turn Hospitals Into Economic Enterprise

Feb. 1,2010
IPHO Head Proposes To Turn Hospitals Into Economic Enterprise
By Quirico M. Gorpido,Jr.

Maasin City, Southern Leyte-Dr. Jose Lito Trumata head of the Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO) here has proposed to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (Provincial Board) to turn all the 6 hospitals into an economic enterprise.
The province of Southern Leyte has 1 provincial hospital located in Maasin; 3 District Hospitals in the municipalities of Sogod, Pintuyan and Anahawan; and 2 community hospitals located at Padre Burgos and Liloan in Panaon Island.
Dr. Trumata during the recent Provincial Development Council meeting held at Ruperto Kangleon Function House in brgy.Mambajao this city, explained to the attendees that economic enterprise means there will be an increase rates in hospital services to the admitted patients who are confine for several days due to sickness.
However, he clarified that the hospital under the new scheme would not abandon its social responsibility to the indigent patients, despite that all admitted patients would be billed.
The provincial hospital head further explained that although the categorized A,B,C patients were being billed, indigents cases can talk to the assigned medical social worker or to the DSWD. They can present their status for evaluation if they can be classified as class C or D to avail of the indigency program with very low payment or full free of their financial obligations.
SP Jason Calva, Chair Committee on Finance and Appropriation, claimed that the income of this new adopted system would make the hospitals to operate autonomously. With the additional trust fund, he said, the hospitals can have more elbow room for its operation.
Provincial Administrator Crispin Arong, Jr. also said that two unrelated issues have cropped up in this new scheme in running the 6 hospitals of the province.
He pointed out that there exists an imbalance of payment of hospital’s room rates to those confined patients who are PhilHealth members in comparison to their hospitalization benefits.
Arong said that the purpose of room rates increases is to get the level of payment received by those who were PhilHealth members to benefit the hospital as well. According to him the benefits received by the hospitals thru the confinement of PhilHealth members would in turn be used to provide better services to the public.
The Provincial Administrator further claimed that the hospitals’ balancing of room rates to PhilHealth’s hospitalization benefits would encourage many people to enroll at PhilHealth to also avail of the benefits provided to its members.
The IPHO Head, on the other hand, also revealed that the provincial hospital has earned an income of P40M from January up to October of the current year.Nevertheless, P10M of the P40M, he said, is a non-monetary income. This means that the P10M were considered “subsidized income” from some admitted patients. But because of their financial situation and cannot afford to pay their bills, they were asking help from the medical social worker, who after evaluating their status were classified as indigents. They either pay much lower or very least than the amount summed up on their hospital bills.
Furthermore, Trumata informed that although his proposal was already approved in principle by the Sangguniang Panlalawigan,it still needs the Provincial Board’s legislation to make the hospitals’ operation legal.(Quirico M.Gorpido,Jr.)