Baguio City Rep. Mark Go’s bill that seeks to increase the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center’s bed capacity from 800 to 1,500 beds was approved in a joint meeting between the Senate’s Committee on Health and Demography and the Committee on Finance.
Once passed into law, House Bill 10451 will mandate the addition of 700 more beds to BGHMC, ensuring that all patients from Baguio City and nearby provinces can properly seek affordable and quality healthcare.
Go welcomed the Senate committee’s approval and thanked the committee for taking up the bill in today’s agenda.
Go said that prior to BGHMC’s bed capacity increase from 500 to 800 beds in 2018 through RA 11084, the hospital already held an occupancy rate of 144.17 percent and the additional beds merely accommodated the situation at the time.
Go added that even after increasing the hospital’s bed capacity to 800, BGHMC continued to operate beyond the approved occupancy rate: in 2018, the occupancy rate was at 117.77 percent, while the figure rose to 127.73 percent in 2019, further taking a toll on the hospital’s facilities and medical staff.
As hospitals may now accept more patients amid loosening restrictions, the occupancy rate at BGHMC is projected to return to 120.75 percent.
He said the new bill raising BGHMC’s bed capacity to 1,500 is geared towards capacity building and countrywide development as the hospital is set to fully implement 15 additional specialty programs over the next four years, strengthening the hospital’s role as a premier end-referral center for the Cordillera and northern Luzon.
“BGHMC also caters to patients coming from regions 1 and 2. Many of our kababayans from the north simply do not have the means to send their patients to the big hospitals in Manila to receive quality and comprehensive medical and healthcare services. We in the north also deserve access to a wider array of highly specialized medical services,” Go said in his opening speech in the Senate committee meeting.
The hospital, which trains over 200 residents in over 16 specialized fields, is set to fully implement 15 more specialty programs over the next four years. These include cardiovascular care, renal care and transplant, lung care, brain and spine care, orthopedic center, cancer care, infectious disease and tropical medicine, and mental health, among others. – Press release
April 20, 2024
