Press Statement
January 25, 2013
January 25, 2013
References:
Mr. Jossel I. Ebesate, President
Alliance of Health Workers: Mobile Number: 09189276381
Mr. Sean Velchez, President NOHWU-AHW, Mobile Number: 09067360468
The
pre-bidding for the Modernization of the Philippine Orthopedic Center (MPOC) by
the Aquino government this January 25 will mark the transformation of the
country’s health care delivery from a citizen’s right to health to a privilege
affordable only to a moneyed few. The sale of Philippine Orthopedic Center (POC)
is the test case of the privatization of health care delivery in the country.
The MOPC
project will cost Php 5.69 B for the 700-bed capacity super-specialty tertiary
orthopedic hospital to be built near the National Kidney and Transplant
Institute in Quezon City. Of the amount, Php 5.43 B will come from the private
investor/s through public bidding.
DOH Secretary Ona has repeatedly denied that privatization
is the very essence of Pnoy’s Public-Private Partnership Program that is gobbling
up even the services to the most basic right of the Filipino people. However,
the items for MPOC bidding clearly suggest what is expected of the program:
- Planning, designing and construction of a minimum of 700-bed capacity super-specialty tertiary hospital providing orthopedic clinical services and allied services;
- Procurement, installation, management, operations and maintenance of modern diagnostic and clinical equipment;
- Procurement, installation, management, operations and maintenance of IT facilities;
- Operation and maintenance of the entire facility including diagnostic center, out-patient departments, in-patient departments, and all other activities related to the operations of the hospital;
- Provision of appropriate administrative and ancillary services (clinical laboratory, imaging and radiology, sterile supplies, pharmacy) of the advanced level that is commensurate with the specific clinical specialties practiced in tertiary care;
- Provision of teaching and training facilities for basic and advanced clinical care and management of specialized and sub-specialized forms of treatment, highly specialized surgical procedure and intensive care as well as care on the specific prevalent diseases in the locality pertaining to the specialty offered by the hospital. This includes continuance of the existing residency training programs which includes among others the Orthopedic Surgery Residency Training Program as accredited by the Philippine Board of Orthopedics which is currently being provided by the existing Philippine Orthopedic Center; and
- Provision of appropriate qualified staff.
With the huge
amount involved in the project vis-à-vis the complex structures and activities
of the modern hospital, the poor patients will not have a chance of enjoying the
services they have now at POC. This is how privatized health institution will
exclude the poor as priority patients. Even the POC staffs are not assured of
their security of tenure.
The sale of
POC will become the milestone of health care privatization. Clearly, this is
the government’s abandonment of its responsibility to people’s right to health
in favor of the impositions of the World Bank, IMF and other International financial
institutions on the heavily indebted countries like the Philippines.
Privatization of POC and eventually the health care system of the country will
further marginalize the poor in the health care delivery. More hospitals like
the RITM, San Lazaro Hospital are up for PPP. The 26 public hospitals
nationwide are for corporatization, another form of privatization.
DOH’s assures
the public that Philhealth is the solution to the health problems of the poor.
However, experiences among the ordinary people in the different parts of the
country prove otherwise. Philhealth is an insurance, thus business. It should be
just an option not a replacement for the government’s responsibility to
people’s right to health. A right such as the right to health should not be
made a commodity for profit for big local and foreign capitalists, in fact the
constitution mandated the government to provide for a quality and affordable
health services to all the people. With the impending privatization through PPP
of the Philippine Orthopedic Center and transferring the construction of a new
modernized orthopedic and trauma hospital, operation, maintenance and the
provision of qualified staff to the private sector for the next 25 years, the
government, not only reneged on such mandate, it practically turn its back to
the very people that it is supposed to be serve.
The affected public
health workers, and the ordinary people therefore that will be directly
affected by such abandonment of government responsibility have the right to
fight back and defend for their right, our right to health. We call on the
people to be with us in our collective assertion for our right to health. ###
