BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The Department of Health has allocated P50 million for the expansion of the Teresita Lopez Jalandoni Provincial Hospital in Silay City, Negros Occidental.
Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said yesterday that he was informed by a senator, whom he did not yet identify pending the downloading of the amount, that the funds was already included in the 2021 national budget approved by President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday.
Lacson said they intend to add more rooms and build an area for patients with infectious diseases.
If the amount will be downloaded in the first quarter of 2021, he said they hope to start the construction by the third quarter of the year.
“This is not a project of the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) but of DOH,” Lacson said.
He also confirmed the downgrading of some provincial government-managed district hospitals to infirmaries. But he said they have introduced something new in the delivery of basic health services, by bringing doctors and surgeons to hospitals where they are needed most.
The provincial government of Negros Occidental is now implementing a One Hospital System that enables doctors to perform elective surgery procedures to patients needing surgical treatments in provincial government-run hospitals.
It started last week at the Valeriano Gatuslao Memorial Hospital in Himamaylan City, where doctors have successfully performed hemorrhoidectomy, inguinal hernia repair, debridement of septic arthritis, and dilatation and curettage due to incomplete abortion and abnormal uterine bleeding.
Under the new system, a complete medical team will be deployed as scheduled to all 11 provincial government-run hospitals in Negros Occidental, so patients need not be referred to other hospitals, a press release from the Capitol said. The concept aims to bring medical services to the people, in line with the Abanse Negrense Priority Development Agenda of Lacson.*
