CCMC taps other hospitals to maintain bed capacity

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) has retained its 300-bed capacity despite its current situation at Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP)-7 building.

Though the temporary hospital at the BFP building currently can accommodate just 105 from a 60-bed capacity a month ago, the CCMC still manage to keep its 300-bed capacity by tapping other medical centers.

CCMC’s original building at the corner of Panganiban and Sanciangko Sts., was declared unfit for occupancy by City Hall’s  structural engineers following the 7.1 magnitude earthquake last Oct. 15.

Dr. Gloria Duterte, CCMC chief, said two hospitals helped the City Government by providing space for Cebu City residents.  The Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) allowed CCMC to use 150 beds inside its facility while the Saint Anthony Mother and Child Hospital took care of 50 beds.

She said they personally went to the Department on Health asking to retain CCMC’s 300-bed capacity.

“We were given one year to have a 300-bed capacity by utilizing other hospitals, which basically would start January next year,” Duterte said.

To meet DOH requirements and retain its accreditation, CCMC has to operate in full capacity, or as it was before the calamity, and continually operate its Out Patient Department (OPD), and Animal Bite Center, among others.

Also, CCMC being a “teaching and training hospital,” has to comply with all the requirements stipulated under DOH guidelines for such institutions.

Duterte cited a DOH guideline stating that a 100-bed-capacity hospital should have 292 employees; 150 beds, 403 employees; 200 beds, 443 staffs and 300 beds capacity needs 869 staffs.

“We have to maintain our services in a level 3 hospital,” she said.

Currently, the CCMC has 508 employees, including 20 deployed at the Guba Emergency Hospital, the community hospital in the mountain barangay of Guba, Cebu City.

Duterte has told the Cebu City Council that patients in Guba have increased in number from 200 to 900.

She said that 358 employees are assigned at the temporary hospital while 130 were deployed at the VSMMC and St. Anthony.  Duterte said that though understaffed, CCMC is maintaining its 300-bed capacity, as required by the DOH.

She said that since DOH is giving them timetable they are prioritizing the construction of a new city hospital.

“We have to find a way to build a hospital bisan phase by phase lang sa at least naa tay ka-stay-han,” she added.

However, Majority Floor Leader Margarita Osmeña, chairman of the city council committee on budget and finance, said “making a hospital is not (the same as) making an ordinary building”.

“How long it will take to build a 1000-bed capacity hospital? One year passes so quickly and we cannot build that fast,” she said.

A new CCMC building eyed to hold 1,000 beds is estimated to cost around P1.5 billion. The City engineering office has included in its proposed budget P173 million for the “improvement of CCMC”.

Including the P7 million culled from the ‘Piso Mo Hospital Ko” campaign, pledges, calamity fund, and insurances, the amount is very much not enough.

Osmeña has disapproved P500 million in proposed budget for the construction of a new CCMC building, adding that it was not part of their original budget proposal for 2014.

City Councilor Mary Ann Delos Santos, an ally of Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, said they are trying their best to find ways for the said cause.

“For now, we are not stopping to look for means…for for better place for our patients,” said delos Santos, a member of the CCMC board. (FREEMAN)