Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office reported on Wednesday that in the first semester of 2018, the agency has spent P4,644,615,997.03 to pay for medicines, hospital bills and medical treatments of patients, an increase of 30.62 percent compared with the same period last year.
“Said amount benefitted a total number of 236,547 patients, an increase of 27.9 percent compared with the same period last year,” PCSO general manager Alexander Balutan said.
Assistant general manager for Charity Sector Dr. Larry Cedro said the top three nature of requests was hospital confinement where the agency released P2.03 billion for 93,531 patients; next was chemotherapy at P1.015 billion for 26,009 patients, and medicines at P888.4 million for 72,138 patients.
Other nature of requests included dialysis (hemodialysis and peritoneal), implant/ prosthesis/ medical devices, laboratory and diagnostic procedures, surgery, radiation treatment, laser treatment, medical appliances, therapy, transplant, and others.
“Thirty percent of PCSO revenues automatically goes to the Charity Fund, which pays for the free hospitalization and medicines of indigent patients and other medical services such as chemo and dialysis treatments, among others,” Balutan said.
Meanwhile, in response to Commission on Audit’s warning against the agency over “questionable” transactions worth more than P10.17 billion intended for charity and programs and medical assistance, Cedro revealed that there’s really a spike in terms of the number of individuals asking assistance from PCSO.
“Being an agency dependent on public trust, it is not easy for us to turn away individuals. What was recommended for us by CoA is to have supplemental budget for that purpose in order to address the excess in budget,” he said.
Cedro said while measures were being adopted to abide by CoA’s observation and even PCSO has established parameters, the individuals asking assistance from PCSO continue to increase.
“While PCSO recognizes its obligation and responsibility when it comes to disbursing funds, the agency is in a very difficult situation as compared with Philippine Health Insurance Corp. [PhilHealth],” said Cedro.
Members of PhilHealth must have sufficient regularity of premium contributions to ensure that they are able to avail themselves of social health insurance benefits in accredited healthcare institutions.
PhilHealth emphasized that eligibility to benefits means that a member must have made at least three months’ contribution within the immediate six months prior to the first day of confinement.
In addition, a member must also have sufficient regularity of premium contribution and should not be subject to legal penalties. Members shall be also referred to its case rates.