Fabella transfer definite – DOH

Amid the opposition of many health workers, the Department of Health (DOH) will push through with the transfer of the Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Medical Center from the Old Bilibid Prison Compound in Sta. Cruz, Manila.

The 65-year-old hospital will be relocated to a new building near the San Lazaro Hospital in Tayuman, Manila.

“We must understand that the buildings of Fabella hospital were built in the 1950s. The buildings were designed as government offices not as a hospital,” Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubial said Thursday.

A team from the Department of Public Works and Highways and a private engineering firm, checked the facility’s eight buildings and found that four were no longer structurally sound and might not withstand a strong earthquake.

The hospital management decided to move to a newer, safer structure.

The new national maternity hospital, which is being built inside the DOH compound on Rizal Avenue and Tayuman Street, is expected to be completed by May next year.

Health workers have been asking the agency to retrofit the present hospital instead of moving it.

“Fabella Hospital is on the brink of privatization. Save Fabella Movement together with other health workers are urging the Department of Health Secretary Ubial to save Fabella Hospital by modernizing it in its present location with the use of public funds,” said Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) President Robert Mendoza.

Ubial insists retrofitting the hospital will be more expensive.

“Thus, the administration of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte and the Department of Health are embarking on a long-term goal of building new, modern, and structurally fit and sound hospital that can service the needs of mothers and children in much better and safer ways,” she said.

Ubial said the DOH “expects its clients, surrounding community, and hospital staff to appreciate the higher benefits of cooperating with the temporary arrangements for the continuous servicing of women by the government hospitals in Metro Manila like the Jose R. Reyes Memorial Medical Center, Tondo Medical Center, Philippine General Hospital, and East Avenue Medical Center, among others.”