‘Increase collection'

Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III yesterday said he wants provincial and district hospitals to maximize collection from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth) so these can be used to improve their facilities.

The governor together with Provincial Administrator Mark Tolentino and his personnel recently went to Bukidnon to learn how they manage their provincial hospitals.

Davide said Bukidnon has 10 provincial and district hospitals yet they were able to collect P400 million a year from Philhealth.

The provincial and district hospitals in Cebu only collected P236 million from the agency.

“We have visited two hospitals (in Bukidnon) and we learned some good points there, which we will soon discuss so we can adopt it,” Davide said.

Once the Philhealth collection increases, Davide said they will add more personnel like doctors, nurses, and midwives in the provincial and district hospitals.

Davide said he will meet with Tolentino, Board Member Christopher Baricuatro of the Provincial Board’s health committee and Dr. Rene Catan, head of the Provincial Health Office, soon on how to improve the daily operations of the provincial and district hospitals.

Out of the 16 hospitals in Cebu Province, five are still classified by the Department of Health as “general” or a Level 1 facility.

They are Balamban Provincial Hospital, Bogo City Provincial Hospital, Carcar City Provincial Hospital, Danao City Provincial Hospital and Isidro Kintanar Memorial Hospital in Argao town. /