President Benigno Aquino III clarified on Wednesday that the government will not be privatizing the National Children’s Hospital.
“We are getting pilloried by yung privatization [talk]. Children’s Hospital is not going to be privatized,” Aquino said during the anniversary of the Ateneo Professional Schools on Wednesday night.
He issued the statement after it was reported that there is already an offer to modernize the National Children’s Hospital, Lung Center of the Philippines, Philippine Heart Center, and National Kidney and Transplant Institute.
On Wednesday, Aquino said changes are needed because the POC has been turned into a social care facility by some people.
“Somebody who is disabled [and] belongs to a marginal family that cannot take care of them at home will, in effect, deposit their relatives in the hospital on a permanent basis depriving those that should be receiving treatment from the necessary bed space use of facilities et cetera,” he said.
“Yung privatization ensures us that we will be able to service the same number of people but at the same time, get the better facilities, get the better equipment and have it parang a more viable entity. That’s [POC] one of the hospitals that is being talked about yung privatization,” he added.
Aside from this, the President said his administration aims to give universal coverage to the public, especially for the bottom two quintiles of the Philippine population. — ELR, GMA News
