The Antique provincial board will conduct ocular inspections of eight district hospitals in the province in the next two weeks to help management identify their priority needs.
Board Member Karmila Rose Dimamay, chairperson of the Committee on Appropriations, said that they want to see the real situation so they would be prioritized in terms of budget.
“Antique’s national tax allocation is in the amount of PHP2.7 billion this year, of which a big sum of 32.6 percent or PHP676 million was really allocated to the hospitals. But then the amount is still not enough to meet the needs,” Dimamay said during their regular session on Monday.
She added that hospital chiefs will also submit their list of medicines and equipment.
The board still have to look for other sources of funding, like the Department of Health, because this year’s budget for hospitals is not enough.
Board Member Fernando Corvera Sr., meanwhile, is looking forward to the Guaranteed Accessible Medications for Outpatient Treatment (GAMOT) program of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to provide medicines for outpatients.
“We are really looking forward to the GAMOT program of the PhilHealth so there will be medicines that could be availed of by the outpatients from the pharmacies,” Corvera said. (PNA)