Rep. Erico Aristotle Aumentado of Bohol’s 2nd District, yesterday led the inauguration and turnover rites of the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Building, improved Ob-Gyne Ward and Emergency Room of the Don Emilio del Valle Memorial Hospital (DEDVMH) in Ubay town.
The move is part of the upgrading and modernization program to qualify to be a 300-bed hospital.
The latest additions complement the new equipment with competent personnel to operate them – with an International Standard Organization (ISO) certification to boot.
This made the hospital attractive to patients coming from nearby towns and even other districts, hospital records would show.
Aumentado said the upped bed capacity also aims to accommodate islanders who now come in at an average of 80 to 100 persons a week after he mobilized his sea ambulance to ferry them to and from Ubay free of charge to get medical attention.
Some are good to go after consultation in the Out-Patient Department. Others need to be confined. To marginalized islanders, the fare for patients plus watchers, their food and accommodations as only the patient gets a bed, can be prohibitive. The cost even skyrockets if they have to bring their patients to Tagbilaran or to Cebu.
The MRI machine is part of the P45-million allocation from the surplus budget of the Department of Health (DoH) that Aumentado bagged during the other year’s budget hearing.
The machine will be the first to be installed in a national government hospital in the province.
A Computed Tomography (CT) scan and five more dialysis machines round up the equipment procured with the P45 million.
The DEDVMH used to be only an extension of the now Gov. Celestino Gallares Memorial Regional Hospital in Tagbilaran City. But a bill introduced and shepherded into a law by the solon’s immediate congressional predecessor and namesake father, former Gov. Erico Boyles Aumentado gave it independence.
“There can be no development under a sick constituency,” the younger Aumentado echoes his father, hence he is pushing for the upgrading and modernization of the health industry especially in Bohol’s northeastern part.
The continued improvement and no cash out on discharge policy because of the enrolment of patients in the PhilHealth program has made the Del Valle hospital attractive even to patients coming from the 1st and 3rd Districts, hospital records show.
The younger solon earlier introduced a bill upgrading the hospital to 200 beds. But seeing the need, especially with the growing number of patients and the effort to decongest the Gov. Celestino Gallares Memoril Regional Hospital in Tagbilaran City, the solon opted for the upgrading the Ubay-based hospital into a 300 bed capacity one. (June Blanco)