Angara: PGH receives extra P1.5B funding in 2021 budget

To ensure that indigent patients would receive free medical services for the entire year, the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) was provided with an additional P1.54 billion in its budget under the P4.5 trillion General Appropriations Act for 2021, Senator Sonny Angara said on Saturday.

The chair of the Senate finance committee pushed for the increase in the budget of the PGH, which is under the University of the Philippines System, “in recognition of the vital role that the facility provides to the poor and to every other patient in need of quality medical attention, especially now that the country is still battling with the Covid-19 pandemic.”

PGH serves over 600,000 patients annually and is the only national referral center for tertiary care, which is why Angara said it “needs a significant amount of financial support to cater to all those who are sick or need specialized care but could not afford to go to a private hospital.”

The additional budget for the PGH would also result in the accommodation of more patients who need to undergo heart surgery.

“Heart diseases continue to be one of the leading causes of death among Filipinos and as such there are more people who need heart surgery. We are constantly looking for ways to capacitate our government hospitals to accommodate more patients with heart ailments and save lives,” Angara said.

Currently, the PGH is able to perform heart surgery on around 50 patients annually at an average cost of P170,000 each or P8.5 million a year.

With the intervention introduced by Angara, the PGH would be able to perform life-saving heart surgeries on as many as 200 patients for 2021.

Under the 2021 budget of the PGH, Angara noted that the hospital would also be able to undertake construction of a multi-specialty facility that will cater to patients who require specialists on renal care, psychology, dermatology, neuroscience and advance laboratory services.

PGH would also be able to start construction of its microbial bank that will provide further support to the hospital’s research and development activities.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)