Duterte signs law increasing VSMMC bed capacity

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has signed into law Republic Act (RA) 11717, which increases the bed capacity of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) in Cebu City from 1,200 to 1,500.

RA 11717, which was approved on April 29 but was only published Friday, May 6, 2022 also mandates the upgrading of VSMMC’s existing professional healthcare services and facilities “to conform with and commensurate to the increase in bed capacity.”

The signing of the law means that the existing workforce of the VSMMC, which includes doctors, nurses and support personnel, should be also increased correspondingly.

Duterte then ordered the Department of Health (DOH) secretary to consult the VSMMC chief, in coordination with the Department of Budget and Management and the chairperson of the Civil Service Commission, to determine the new positions that need to be created and filled.

“The secretary of the DOH shall immediately include in the Department’s program the implementation of this Act, the funding of which shall be included in the annual Appropriations Act,” Section 4 of RA 11717 stated.

The law also stated that any future increase in bed capacity should be consistent with the hospital development plan, which will be prepared by the DOH.

Malacañang said RA 11717 will take effect 15 days after its publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation.

RA 11717 was passed in the House of Representatives on Dec. 1, 2020 and the Senate approved it on January 31, 2022.

It was the late congressman Raul del Mar (Cebu City, 1st district) who first filed the bill in the House to expand the hospital’s bed capacity on July 1, 2019.

In his introduction to his then House Bill (HB) 495, del Mar said VSMMC, a “general tertiary medical center teaching training medical facility owned by the Philippine government,” was developing specialties and sub-specialties under different clinical departments and would need more beds as the hospital also serves not just Cebu but also the rest of the Visayas and provinces in Mindanao fronting Cebu island.

The specialty centers of VSMMC, the mega multi-specialty hospital of the Visayas, include a Heart-Lung Center, Kidney Transplant Center, Oncology Center, Trauma Center, Orthopedic Center, Center for Infectious Disease and Tropical Medicine, Geriatric Center, and Diabetes Control Center, del Mar had said. ■