House approves hospital bed capacity bill

The Health Committee of the House of Representatives approved a bill which will allow the increase of the bed capacity of hospitals without a need to pass an enabling law.

Based on the information gathered from the office of Bohol’s first district representative Edgar Chatto, there is a need to allocate more funds for hospitals to be able to increase bed capacity, as well as a need to increase the number of health care personnel to be assigned in public hospitals.

In the same information, the House of Representatives Committee on Health approved House Bill 1502 or “An Act Authorizing the Department of Health (DoH) to Set and Approve the Bed Capacity of All DoH Hospitals.”

Under the measure, the Health Secretary is authorized to increase the bed capacities of DoH-supervised hospitals in the country and allows the upgrading of hospital bed capacity by administrative imprimatur, no longer by legislative approval which undergoes the prior tedious process.

Chatto, a nine-year term governor of Bohol, said the bill initiates an institutional reform as it expedites the improvement of government hospitals which is at any given time urgent and necessary, addressing the concern of accessible quality health care.

The bill seeks to eliminate the problem of waiting for Congress to act on an otherwise urgent hospital upgrading need has rooted for decades and its solution been long overdue.

“I am happy that one of the bills I filed is already approved at the committee level this early in the 18th Congress,” the lawmaker said.

Chatto also filed a separate bill which aims to strengthen the Malasakit Program.

The Boholano lawmaker wants to institutionalize the Malasakit Centers. In his province, there are two Malasakit Centers.

The Malasakit Centers are the pet project of former Special Assistant to the President and now Senator Christopher “Bong” Go.