The Southern Philippines Medical Center in Davao City is now officially the largest Department of Health-owned government hospital in the country.
This, after Congress approved Republic Act No 11326, which effectively increased its bed capacity to 1,500.
In the statement posted on the official Facebook page of the SPMC on Monday, the administrators announced that this is part of their “commitment to provide excellent, sustainable and accessible health care services.”
The bed capacity of SPMC has previously been increased from 600 to1,200 beds in 2009. However, due to the growing population in Mindanao and the influx of people, they saw the need to once again increase the capacity.
Total admissions reported by SPMC in 2015 is 66,463 which increased to 75,004 patients in 2016 or an average of 200 per day. Currently, the SPMC is actually operating at a capacity of 1,453 beds but the same is still not enough to accommodate the influx of patients.
With the upgrade, further additional beds also require additional medical personnel, facilities and equipment. Thus, the Department of Health and the Department of Budget and Management, along with the Civil Service Commission, are tasked to determine the additional plantilla positions to be created.
From the joint letter of Karlo Nograles and Jericho Jonas Nograles in 2017 to the Congress, they stated that the upgrade allows SPMC to “better address the health needs of the people of Davao and other parts of Mindanao.”
They said that the hospital had a 139.4% occupancy rate in 2016, or a three-percentage-point increase over 2015.
The act was approved last April 17, 2019.
