House oks bill increasing the bed capacity of BGHMC

February 5, 2018 Metro BLISTT

The House unanimously approved House Bill 6619 increasing the bed capacity of Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC) on third and final reading last January 29, 2018.
The measure, authored by Baguio City lone district Representative Mark Go, seeks to increase from 500 to 800 the bed capacity of BGHMC.
“The hospital’s annual statistics report reveals that every year, the hospital exceeds its bed occupancy due to its volume of admission. In 2015 alone, its bed occupancy rate has reached 133.92% with a total admission of 37, 022. In the following year, it exceeded 144.17% of its normal occupancy rate admitting a total of 37,577 patients,” Go explained.
A provision of the said proposed measure states that the existing service facilities and professional health care services of the BGHMC shall be upgraded to conform with and commensurate to the proposed increase of bed capacity.
According to DOH, the current ratio of bed capacity to population in Cordillera Administrative Region is 1:918 compared to the 1:800 standard ratio in the Philippines. Also, the BGHMC is complying with the mandate of a tertiary hospital and that the DOH is in current review of the master site plan to assess the utilization of the hospital’s existing buildings.
“This bill would mean additional facilities, equipment, doctors, nurses and other medical professionals for BGHMC. More importantly, this would greatly help our people to avail quality and effective health services,” Go said.
Presently, BGHMC caters eighty percent (80%) indigent patients including PhilHealth funded patients.  As of February 2017, its bed capacity rate has reached to 114.32% with total in-patients of 16,005.
This is indeed an important health measure that will address our hospital’s requirement. I am hopeful that our counterpart in the Senate would support the immediate passage of this bill,” Go said.
It can be recalled last year that Senator JV Ejercito vowed to push BGHMC’s increase of bed capacity in the Senate. ABN