Negros Oriental: Doctors, bizmen to build new hospital

CEBU, Philippines - At least 60 renowned doctors in Negros Oriental and businessmen have organized the East Negros Health Alliance Incorporated to embark on a mighty task of building a new hospital for women and children.

The group had carried out a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the medical facility, to be called Negros Polymedic Hospital, near the South Seas resort in Sibulan town.

The ceremony was attended by Governor Roel Degamo, 2nd District Repre-sentative George Arnaiz, Sibulan Mayor Emmanuel Diputado, Tubtubon Barangay Chairperson Daisy Inoferio, former Representative Herminio “Meniong” Teves, Bishop Julito Cortes, parish priest Monsignor Gamaliel Tulabing and representatives of the business and private sectors, and government physicians.

Environmental requirements are now being complied with for the project, which is expected to be finished not later than 2016, said Dr. Krypton Kho, board chairman of the ENHAI.

The project is for a 100-bed general hospital, but due to limitations, it will start small with a 35-bed specialty hospital for women and children, the important segment of the population that started it all, Kho said.

It will be a full-service with a surgery, nursery and high-risk pregnancy units just like a tertiary hospital with an initial fund requirement of P150 million including the acquisition of the lot, the building itself and hospital equipment and facilities, he said.

Kho said the ENHAI was organized after long years of planning, and even setbacks, to address the need for more hospital beds, due to the doctors’ experience in the past when patients were cramped in hospitals during epidemics, resulting in deaths.

All these years, health institutions in the province have been adequate and sufficient to address the needs,  but when the dengue epidemic struck, authorities were caught off guard by the number of patients, especially children, said Kho.

Kho said the doctors have realized the need for additional hospitals as they watched in frustrations during the epidemic. It was then clear there was a shortage of hospital beds, thus they and the businessmen started discussing on how to solve the problem.

Meanwhile, the Negros Oriental Provincial Board on Thursday unanimously approved a motion to adjust the paychecks of three contractual doctors assigned at the Community Primary Hospitals in remote areas of the province and pay them retroactive after they did not receive their salaries since July this year.

CPH Supervisor, Dr. Chelsea Cacaldo requested Governor Degamo to ask the PB for the payment of salaries for the three doctors similar in amount with those of the Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital in Dumaguete City.

The three were Doctors Lorbie Yap of the Pacuan (La Libertad) Community Primary Hospital, and Jenellie Bomediano and Genevieve Violeta, of the Dawis (Bayawan City) Community Primary Hospital.

The contracts of these doctors are renewable every six months but, since July 2, they have not received any salaries pending the request of the governor that their paychecks be adjusted.

Last July 31, the PB was asked to grant authority to the governor to hire the three, under contract of services, with a salary of P39,493 each per month for the period July 1 to December 31, 2014.  —-Juancho R. Gallarde and Judy Flores Partlow (FREEMAN)