COA flags OFW Hospital’s services, unutilized funds

The Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) Hospital failed to deliver significant medical services in its first year of operation under the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) because it did not utilize its P292.5-million budget for equipment, medicines and medical supplies, a government audit report has found.

The Commission on Audit (COA) has called out the DMW, which took over management of the hospital in Pampanga from the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) in January 2023, for its “inability to effectively manage budget consumption.”

The COA cited the government hospital’s “failure to establish a good working system for procurement, property and inventory management” for the unutilized budget.

“Consequently, the mandate of the hospital to provide free and comprehensive medical services to the OFWs and their dependents was not fully realized,” state auditors said in a report last December.

The total unused allocation for fiscal year 2023 included the “continuing fund” amounting to P78.55 million from Dole, which initially operated the OFW Hospital when it opened in May 2022.

The remaining unused amount, on the other hand, accounted for 67 percent of the total funding for 2023 at P319.3 million.

The machinery and equipment that were not procured due to negligence in using the allotted funds included a digital mammogram, mechanical ventilators, an X-ray machine, two anesthesia machines, test kits and laboratory reagents.

This negligence was “indicative of the inability to establish a good working procurement system,” the COA said, adding that it jeopardized the government hospital’s effective delivery of services.

Outsourced services

The state auditor noted further that the OFW Hospital had “yet to establish its own bids and awards committee.”

The COA examiners had listed the medical services rendered by the hospital, the bulk of which were laboratory tests with a total of 106,278 patients served. But they pointed out that most of the laboratory services were outsourced to other hospitals.

Around P7.5 million worth of diagnostic services and screening tests for the OFW Hospital patients were done at Jose B. Lingad Memorial General Hospital and St. Francis De Sales Diagnostic Center Inc.

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“Understandably, setbacks are expected since it was the first year that the department (DMW) managed the operations of the OFW Hospital. Nonetheless, the department should be mindful of finding a concrete solution and a system that will accelerate its procurement processes,” it stressed.

‘Gold standard’

The hospital management agreed to several recommendations from state auditors, including studying the viability of forming a separate bids and awards committee solely for OFW Hospital, creating a procurement plan for the needed medical equipment and supplies, strengthening the inventory system and studying existing agreements with the provincial government of Pampanga and possibly creating new ones.

The seven-story hospital with a 102-bed capacity was built under Executive Order No. 154 issued in December 2021.

Upon the turnover of the management to the DMW in January 2023, the late DMW Secretary Susan Ople vowed that the OFW Hospital would provide the “gold standard” in hospital services for the preemployment and post arrival medical needs of Filipino migrant workers and their dependents.

The hospital caters to the spouses of OFWs, their children under 18 years old, their parents and the siblings under 18 of unmarried OFWs.