Poe questions purchase of expensive PPE

SEN. Mary Grace Poe on Tuesday questioned why the Department of Health (DoH) bought personal protective equipment (PPE) sets at P1,800 each when its market value is between P400 and P1,000.

The senator, chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Services, had pushed for the protection and just compensation of health frontliners in the passage of Republic Act 11469 or the “Bayanihan to Heal as One Act.”

The Bayanihan Act grants President Rodrigo Duterte to tap over P200 billion unused public funds to address the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

Part of the fund will be used for the purchase of PPE sets for doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers.

“Opting for a cheaper price but of the same quality would have only cost the DoH about P400 million to P1 billion, generating P800 million in savings at the minimum,” Poe said in a statement.

“Confronting an extraordinary public health crisis requires prompt response but in doing so, let us not forget the need for the judicious use of fund releases,” she said.

On Monday, the DoH said it was awaiting the delivery of 1 million sets of PPE, to be distributed to public and private hospitals treating Covid-19 patients and people under investigation and people under monitoring.

It has P225 million left from the budget allocated for PPE sets.

“Every peso that we can save in this trying times can be used in other government programs to provide help to our people who badly need financial aid and food everyday,” Poe said in Filipino.

She also appealed to the DoH to ease the red tape in the distribution of PPE donations and other critical medical equipment to hospitals.

“More than two weeks into the enhanced quarantine, swift action and massive testing will help accelerate collaborative efforts to contain the pandemic, a valuable lesson we could learn from our Asian counterparts who have become successful in slowing down the spread of the disease,” said Poe.

She expressed hope that the DoH could further streamline its processes in making donated PPE readily available to hospitals and frontliners in light of the increasing number of infections.