Thedistrict hospital
MABALACAT DISTRICT HOSPITAL has been established to serve Pampanga’s poor and marginalized sector but it attends to emergency cases as with victims of accidents along MacArthur Highway. The city disaster risk reduction management office refers to this hospital accident victims regularly.
Records show that this hospital’s operational jurisdiction is with the provincial government of Pampanga. It is currently headed by Dr. Benjie Arboleda, assisted by Ms. Nelia, chief nurse and nursing staff Irene, Rita and others who do round-the-clock chores among patients.
Flocks of residents from Mabalacat City call on this facility for various reasons and cases, oftentimes leaving promissory notes and referrals from politicians, mostly board members who are given privileges such as discounts. Other patients use Philhealth cards and other health maintenance cards to justify their discharge.
The district facility’s physical appearance has deteriorated through the years due to wear and tear and obsolescence. Its comfort rooms, in particular, are not as clean as they should be and water is sometimes in short supply. It lacks modern equipment and adequate medical supplies. Its wards are also not well-maintained and its Pedia ward is often overcrowded. The Male ward where my sickly son Regie was recently confined, had only two wall fans. The patients’ caretakers often bring in their own electric fans and they sleep on wood benches near the patients’ beds. The facility has no gensets in case of brownouts.
Most of the facility’s staff are job order contract holders but their wages are oftentimes allegedly delayed, even the nursing staff reportedly haven’t received their salaries, as of this writing. Why is this so?
I’ve observed last week that one of the fire exits was locked even during the day, a practice forbidden by the Bureau of Fire Protection in case of fire. The guards on duty whom I’ve talked to related that two patients from the Pedia ward and one from the Male ward escaped so the practice of locking the fire exits.
***** I would recommend that the operations and management of the Mabalacat District Hospital be transferred to the LGU of Mabalacat City so that it will be well-maintained, its staff promptly paid and the overall physical appearance of the facility vastly improved. I’m sure Mayor Boking would agree to my proposition because he is so focused on providing his constituents of the finest and quality health care.
He may perhaps rename it the Mabalacat City General Hospital and acquire modern equipment and facilities such as hemodialysis, renal and cardio vascular equipment and other machines befitting a modern hospital similar to the Medical City at Clark, St. Luke’s Medical Center and perhaps the Makati Medical Center. Who knows what dreaming big br i n gs?