Carcar hospital upgrade eyed

• Source:http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/local-news/2016/10/24/carcar-hospital-upgrade-eyed-505321
• Monday, October 24, 2016

By Oscar C. Pineda

THE Cebu Provincial Health Office (PHO) is considering the Carcar Provincial Hospital (CPH) to become a Level II facility and become the Province’s blood collecting unit (BCU), said Dr. Rene Catan.

“Haron ang mga pasyente nato, ikaw operahanan ka sa Balamban, dili na ka padaganon sa gabii padung sa Sotto haron mokuha og blood (So that our patients, if you need to be operated on in Balambam, you don’t need to go so far at night to Sotto hospital just to get blood),” said Provincial Health Office (PHO) Chief Rene Catan.

He said a hospital needs to become Level II to qualify as a BCU.

If the CPH becomes a collecting center, the PHO can invite volunteers to donate blood.

Collected blood will be processed in the regional blood bank then the provincial hospital will collect back processed blood for distribution to its hospitals.

With the rise in dengue cases, blood is important to patients in provincial and district hospitals.

“Ang hospital dili siya maka-exist, dili kita maka-serve kung wa tay blood (Hospitals can’t exist without it, blood is important to we can serve), blood is key to hospital operation,” Catan said in an interview.

Needs

In its recent press release, Catan is optimistic that it can bring two of the four provincial hospitals to attain Level 2 category next year as initial steps in making health services at par with private facilities.

Carcar and Danao Provincial Hospitals are being eyed for a Level 2 accreditation. Under the Level 2 category, a health care facility must have doctors for internal medicine and advance amenities and services for OB-gyne and anesthesiology.

Its press release further stated that Level II standards also require machines for computed tomography (CT) scan and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment.

In addition, he said in an interview, what they need are additional hospital beds, radiology technicians, medical technicians, surgeons and anesthesiologists, and blood. He is targeting early next year to have all of them.

He said he wanted all four provincial hospitals to become Level II or Level III after three years, but would need P2.5 billion to achieve this goal.

But even without the P2.5 billion, Catan, in an interview, said, “We are a stone’s throw away” to develop Carcar’s hospital to Level II.