BACOLOD City – The Department of Health (DOH) has allocated P50 million to augment this city’s fund for City Ordinance (CO) No. 1014, also known as the Bacolod City Comprehensive Health Program (BacCHP) ordinance.
The BacCHP aims to give preventive and curative health care services to qualified Philippine Health Insurance, Inc. (PhilHealth) members who are residents of this city.
BacCHP coordinator Mae Cuaycong said Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez has requested the fund from the national agency to augment the expenses of the BacCHP.
The said program, she explained, is spending not less than P16 million a month, and it is increasing.
“If we really rely on the city fund alone , it is not enough. That is why we have the supplemental budget of P27 million and P15 million, aside from the P54-million allocation from the 2024 annual budget of the city,” Cuaycong stressed.The BacCHP is in partnership with six private and a public hospitals in the city including the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital.
Meanwhile, Cuaycong said they already had a meeting with partner hospitals regarding the DOH allocation.
The DOH will directly download the fund to the hospitals after they have submitted the total bill. The P50-million fund will be divided to partner hospitals.
Under the BacCHP, each beneficiary is entitled to avail P15,000 worth of health care services. The program currently has more than 5,000 cardholders from over 100,000 registered members.
As of October, the city had assisted more than 1,200 patients and more than 9,000 patients from January to October this year./PN
