DOH: 400 facilities were already probed
The Department of Health (DOH) has actually been investigating the 400 “idle” health centers under the agency’s Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFEP), DOH Secretary Teodoro Herbosa claimed on Sunday.
“Actually the DOH has been investigating these anomalies way before media picked it up,” Herbosa said, without specifying any of the findings of the supposed investigations.
During a congressional budget hearing earlier this year, Herbosa said the health centers under the HFEP could be considered the DOH version of the flood control projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways.
The HFEP, launched in 2008, is the DOH’s banner program that aims to ensure that poor and marginalized communities have access to health-care services.
“Several actions have been taken already and we continue to do case buildup,” Herbosa added, again without providing details.
Herbosa made the remarks to expound on the replies of Health Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Albert Domingo during an online interview.
When asked what actions have been taken in relation to the investigation, Domingo said, “they are actions meant for mandated investigative bodies and the formal courts of law.”
Findings still under wraps
“The DOH will disclose them at the appropriate time and before the appropriate legal forum,” Domingo told reporters in a Viber group chat.
But Herbosa also suggested that the DOH has been “looking for options to operationalize nonfunctioning completed health facilities.”
Akbayan Rep. Chel Diokno initially questioned why only 200 out of 600 health centers under the HFEP are functional despite being allocated over P170 billion in the past decade.
However, budget sponsor and Bataan Rep. Albert Garcia clarified that while the HFEP has no “ghost hospitals,” the lack of personnel and health-care professionals to run the facilities made them nonfunctioning.
Garcia also said that the DOH entered into a memorandum of agreement with local governments in “good faith,” as it expected them to provide personnel.
But further discussion of the health facilities was overtaken by other controversies confronting the DOH.
Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin, a former health secretary, particularly questioned Herbosa’s other programs, like the P1-billion proposed budget for the beautification of DOH offices, P458-million research fund for the DOH, and its planned P7.5-million donation to the World Health Organization (WHO) over three years to other programs.
Garin took special notice of the DOH beautification projects and the WHO donation, saying the funds for these should instead be used for patient care and subsidies for the universal health-care program or to hire more doctors and nurses.
“The President wants zero-balance billing, while hospitals are asking for bigger funds. But how did [this] pass through the Department of Budget and Management—that there is about P1 billion intended not for hospitals and rural hospitals, but for ‘beautifying’ DOH offices?” Garin asked.
