THE Senate approved on second reading the proposed House Bill No. 6731 establishing the Bacolod City General Hospital.
Bacolod City Lone District Representative Greg Gasataya on Thursday, May 27, 2021, said the bill, which he authored and its counterpart, Senate Bill No. 1647, filed by Senator Miguel Zubiri, have been approved in the Senate on second reading on Wednesday.
"We are a step closer for Bacolod to have its own hospital," he said.
He added the Senate allotted a budget of P600 million for the establishment of the Bacolod City District Hospital to be included in the 2022 General Appropriations Act under the Health Facilities Enhancement Program of the Department of Health.
"As someone who has firsthand experience of how difficult it is to have a sick family member and barely have means to pay for hospitalization, I understand our need to better public healthcare. This is why we made healthcare and medical assistance our priority in Congress," Gasataya said.
Gasataya noted that under the guidelines of the Department of Health (DOH), a tertiary general hospital offers services such as family medicine, pediatrics, internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, emergency services, outpatient services, and ancillary and support services such as clinical laboratory, imaging facility, and pharmacy.
Along with these facilities such as physical medicine and rehabilitation unit, ambulatory surgical clinic, dialysis clinic, tertiary clinic laboratory with histopathology, a blood bank, and third-level x-ray may also be included.
"It is high time that Bacolod will have its own hospital, one that will have state-of-the-art facilities and offers quality service to indigents and low-income groups," Gasataya said.
He said in the 17th Congress, Republic Act No. 11441, increasing the bed capacity of Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH) from 400 to 1,000, was enacted into law from his proposed bill to decongest the local healthcare system.
"To further strengthen this effort, to provide quality and affordable healthcare for Bacolodnons, and in hopes that even future generations of Bacolodnon, as our city grows will always have someone to turn to come illness, we filed HB 6731 in the 18th Congress establishing the Bacolod City General Hospital," he added.
Gasataya also expressed his gratitude to Senate President Vicente Sotto, Senate Majority Leader Senator Zubiri, Committee on health Chairman Senator Christopher Lawrence Go, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, Health Secretary Francisco Duque and the DOH, House Committee on Health Chairperson Representative Angelina Tan, and the local government unit of Bacolod City for the support of this legislation.
