NEWS | UP-PGH Diliman Project, moves forward
By Natasha Carolina
The University of the Philippines (UP) — Philippine General Hospital (PGH) in Diliman, Quezon City and the new PGH Cancer Center in Manila projects move forward as proposals have been submitted to the Investment Coordination Committee (ICC) technical board for re-endorsement to the Cabinet committee.
Both projects are major public-private partnerships (PPPs) supported by the Duterte administration. The private sector partners are to handle the design, construction, and procurement and installation of medical equipment.
New, improved hospital facilities
The ₱21.3-billion UP-PGH Diliman project will be built on 4.2 hectares of land with a state-of-the-art, 700-bed university teaching and research hospital with multi-storey tertiary care, outpatient services, medical research center, school of medicine, hospice, and ancillary facilities.
It is intended to receive 2,000 outpatient visits per day and 39, 196 in-patient admission per year with the hopes of easing the 600,000 patients per year at the PGH located in Manila.
Meanwhile, the new PGH Cancer Center in UP Manila will have a 200 to 300-bed capacity. In a study conducted by the Manila National Institutes of Health, 189 in every 100,000 Filipinos have cancer, which the cancer center aims to address.
Students, against UP-PGH Diliman
Anakalusugan Party-list Rep. and Quezon City mayor candidate 2022 Michael Defensor endorses the project, as it is expected to improve public access to world-class charity hospitalization and outpatient services, as well as create jobs.
“We’ve gone over the project details, and the hospital alone will create 1,500 new full-time occupations for medical and allied healthcare staff plus 1,900 new fixed positions for general administrative workers,” Defensor stated in an interview
The Office of the Vice President for Public Affairs of the University of the Philippines (UP OVPAA) has high hopes as well that the projects will be approved, assuring that there will be no privatization of government assets in these projects.
Despite the positive expectations, people on social media were opposed to the UP-PGH Diliman project.
“PGH-Diliman at the expense of residential housing and livelihood of Arboretum will never be acceptable. Kulang ang funding for PGH sa Manila yet may vision to erect one in Diliman. This is what commercialization looks like — arrogance for legacy without considering rights.” tweeted a UP Diliman student.
Another student tweeted that the budget allotted for building PGH in Diliman should be given to improve PGH Manila instead.
“We can’t have another PGH if the PGH we have now can’t even provide basic healthcare for the people,” they added.
