VSMMC to accommodate CHAMP patients anew

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City patients under the City Hospitalization Assistance and Medicines Program (Champ) can now be admitted at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) after the City Council authorized the mayor to sign a new agreement with the medical institution.

 This was on top of the P2-million deposit on August 8 as agreed upon with VSMMC.

 Based on the agreement, in-patients, out-patients and emergency patients are entitled to medical assistance, such as medical laboratory tests, dialysis, ECG, X-ray and other medical and laboratory procedures.

 The CHAMP guidelines only allow the city government to shoulder a maximum of P25,000 for each beneficiary. The city has appropriated P100 million for CHAMP, which includes laboratory, medicine, hospitalization/billing, and burial aid.

 The city government had a MOA with VSMMC in 2010 for the Champ program, in which indigents could avail themselves of P5,000 worth of medicine, P5,000 for laboratory expenses and a maximum of P25,000 for hospitalization.

 VSMMC, a public  general and tertiary medical facility created by virtue of Presidential Decree 1832, has deferred admitting patients covered by Champ since 2010 because the city government failed to settle P3 million in payables incurred in 2009 to 2010.

 Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella explained that the city was not able to pay the P3 million to VSMMC because the hospital failed to submit the needed documents and attachments in the billings such as the name of the patients, medical abstract, and diagnosis.

 The total amount was for the medical expenses of Cebu City Medical Center patients referred to VSMMC.

 The city tapped VSMMC to accommodate CHAMP patients after the CCMC hospital was severely damaged by the magnitude 7.2 earthquake last year. The building was demolished in February.

 The Department of Health recently downgraded CCMC’s status to Level 1 facility from being a Level 2 hospital because the space it is currently occupying, the regional office of the Bureau of Fire Protection, is ‘not ideal’ facility for a hospital.  (FREEMAN)