Senators flag low OFW hospital turnout

Senators flag low OFW hospital turnout | Daily Tribune

Senators during the Senate Committee on Finance hearing on the budget of the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) raised concerns over the declining utilization rate of the OFW Hospital in Pampanga, which has fallen to 14 percent in 2025.

Senator Win Gatchalian cited DMW records that showed the hospital’s utilization rate stood at 35 percent in 2023, 43 percent in 2024, and dropped to 14 percent this year.

Migrant Workers Secretary Hans Cacdac pointed to procurement delays and centralized systems as the major causes of the utilization drop.

“Here in the OFW Hospital, you are right, you hit the capital outlay expenditures, more particularly in the construction of additional facilities, equipment, and medicines. We have been resolving the matter over the last few months and seek to address the problem of utilization,” Cacdac said.

He also cited some partnerships to address the problem of utilization, such as DMW’s partnership with PhilPharma, which can provide it with a steady stream of medicines instead of the traditional back procurement from the DMW side, which they are also trying to address.

“The procurement is still centered on the DMW. We want to download this already at the regional OFW Hospital level. We are currently engaged in terms of a steadier stream of procurement. If I were to hit the problem, it’s essentially procurement,” Cacdac said.

DMW Undersecretary Dominique Rubia-Tutay said the department was decentralizing its financial management and bids and awards committee functions.

“In the past, all of our activities in the central office were centralized. There are no personnel in the OFW Hospital handling the financial side of the hospital,” she said. “We have put in place systems and developed their capacity for managing finance.”

Tutay explained that most of the unutilized funds were allotted for capital outlay, primarily for hospital equipment. She also addressed the delay in the construction of the P80-million Cancer Care Center, which was funded in 2024, saying that the DMW has already coordinated with the contractor who will begin putting up the facility within the month.

According to Tutay, the delay was due to budget placement and bidding issues, as the funds were coursed through the Department of Health (DoH) and implemented by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

“I think the budget was lodged with the DPWH,” Tutay said. “There have been delays in the past. First, there was a failed bidding, and the second time around, only a single bidder won.”

Cacdac said the contractor who will build the Cancer Care Facility was the contractor who established the OFW Hospital.

Despite the low utilization rate, Cacdac defended the hospital’s role as the country’s first facility dedicated to overseas Filipino workers, noting that it serves nearly 100,000 OFWs from Luzon each year.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Migrant Workers, Senator Raffy Tulfo, has also been helping the DMW in intensifying its information campaigns to boost patient turnout, the DMW chief said.

“We will still fulfill our promise to the President that the Cancer Care Center will be established within his term,” Cacdac said.

The OFW Hospital was inaugurated in 2022 and is operated by the DMW with support from the DoH and the University of the Philippines--Philippine General Hospital, offering free medical services to OFWs and their dependents.

The hospital is classified as a Level 1 health facility. According to the DMW chief, it does not yet have an intensive care unit (ICU), although provisions for one are in place, as well as for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) unit.

“We are on the way to achieving Level 2 status, hopefully by next year, to operate the ICU,” Cacdac said.

As of 2025, the hospital reported P73.4 million in income, up from P52.8 million in 2024, which can be retained for hospital operations under the 2025 national budget.