P13.5M for GenSan Hospital from DOH

The Department of Health is financing the renovation of the FRONTAGE of the General Santos City Hospital amounting to P13.5 million, this according to GenSan Mayor Jun Acharon, when interviewed by media personnel during an ocular inspection of the said construction.

The amount mentioned will fund the construction of the hospital frontage with new lobby PLUS a much bigger Emergency Room and  Out-Patient Department.  The budget’s release was facilitated by Representative Darlene Antonino-Custodio of the First District of South Cotabato.

The mayor also remarked that the GenSan City hospital aims to continually improve the delivery of health services not only to the people of GenSan but to those from the nearby provinces of Sarangani and South Cotabato.

This new project comes right after the completion of the initial phase of the hospital’s expansion, which is the additional two-storey building facility and  new medical equipment funded by the city to the tune of P15 million.  That project was inagurated last February 2009.  READ the story by JUST SIMPLY CLICKING HERE.

For the next phase of improvements, the Mayor plans to address the Manpower problem, including his plan to appeal to the Civil Service Commission to exclude medical workers in the implementation of Salary Caps.  An additional Operating Room is also on the pipeline to give room to more surgical services.

At the end of November, the hospital should also expect for the arrival of a 400KVA Generator to make the new Intensive Care Unit 100% functional.

Currently, the 150-bed capacity hospital has been receiving an average of 250 patients.  Thus, this is another thrust of the local government – to increase its capacity.  The mayor revealed that two years ago, Philhealth claims averaged only 200 per day.  Now it has gone up to 550 to 600 claims.  This could be due to the increase in the city’s population and the inclusion of  more indigents into the Philhealth Program of President GMA.

Lastly, the mayor also said that Fernandez Street which is the access road to the hospital from the National Highway is also undergoing repairs and is scheduled to be completed by January 2010, part of the local government’s improvement drive of the city’s road network.