Number of beneficiaries up: City runs out of funds for medical assistance

CEBU, Philippines – The P30 million budget proposed in the Supplemental Budget 4 (SB 4) to fund the medical and hospitalization assistance program of the Cebu City government will not be enough until December this year due to the increasing number of residents availing the program each day.

But to keep the program going, Mayor Michael Rama already promised to put more funds for its implementation in the next supplemental budget which will be passed before the program runs out of money again.

Marivic Alolod, administrative officer II and in-charge of the approval of applications for the City Hospitalization Assistance and Medicine Program (CHAMP), said that they thought that P30 million could last until December but they have never anticipated that beneficiaries would increase almost 50 percent more than few months after it started in October last year.

Alolod said that now they are releasing medicines to more than 200 beneficiaries per day. This does not include those who are hospitalized and taking laboratory tests.

Each beneficiary is entitled to P5,000 worth of medicines consumable for the whole year and which they could claim in four participating pharmacies namely Pro-poor pharmacy, Del Pharmacy, Dominique Pharmacy and Pro-Inay pharmacy.

During the time of former mayor Tomas Osmeña, residents used to be given P10,000 worth of medicines per year, which they could claim at P5,000 every six months.

Alolod said that the new guideline which cuts in half the medical assistance is to discourage abuse because they learned that some are availing the program even if they are not sick.

They are, however, still entitled to an annual P25,000 subsidy in case they get admitted in a hospital.

Alolod confirmed that the new guideline was only implemented during the time of Rama contrary to a report (not in The FREEMAN) that denied the new policy.

Alolod said that Rama met them last week to discuss the needed budget for the program's implementation.

Rama wants to know how they could keep the program running continuously to avoid what happened before where they had to suspend the release of medicines to outpatients because of budget constraint.

Specific amount of additional budget for the SB 5 however is still not decided.

Alolod said their needs would depend on how quick the resources will run out especially at this time of rainy season when diseases related to the weather are expected to rise. (THE FREEMAN)