House OKs 61 bills to improve health services

MANILA, Philippines -  The House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading 61 local bills promoting national health services.

The measures transmitted to the Senate before Congress adjourned last month included the establishment and conversion of hospitals nationwide.“The passage of these local bills is a very important constitutional duty of Congress,” said Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr.

Among the bills transmitted to the Senate were those for the establishment of the Mariveles District Hospital in the Municipality of Mariveles, Bataan and the establishment of a 30-bed hospital in the second district of Antipolo City.

Also approved on final reading were the following: increasing the bed capacity of the Jose B. Lingad Hospital in San Fernando, Pampanga from 250 to 500; upgrading and modernizing the J. R. Borja City Memorial Hospital as an extension hospital of the Northern Mindanao Medical Center in Cagayan De Oro City; increasing the minimum bed capacity of the Zamboanga City Medical Center from 250 to 500; and increasing the bed capacity of Severo Verallo Memorial District Hospital at Taytayan, City of Bogo, Cebu, from 50 to 100 bed capacity.

To improve health service and research, the House also transmitted to the Senate the measures converting the Western Visayas Sanitarium and Leprosarium in the municipality of Sta. Barbara, Iloilo into the President Diosdado Macapagal Memorial Hospital and Research Institute for Tropical Medicine. 

Also to be converted is the Northern Samar Provincial Hospital in Catarman, into the Samar Island Medical Center.