Parañaque City Rep. Gustavo Tambunting welcomed a Supreme Court’s decision upholding the validity and constitutionality of the anti-hospital deposit law.
“I am proud our Supreme Court has ruled that this law has not violated the rights of our hospitals. Clearly, there was no real basis for this case to have been filed in the first place,” he said.
Tambunting is one of the principal authors of the Republic Act 10932.
“No Filipino must be deprived of basic emergency care due to poverty. We ask our hospitals to be our partner in achieving this goal,” he said.
“If the Court were to invalidate the questioned law on the basis of conjectures and suppositions, then it would be unduly treading questions of policy and wisdom not only of the legislature that passed it, but also of the executive which approved it,” the ruling read.
The law increased the penalties against hospitals who require deposits before accepting patients in emergency or serious cases.
The coverage of the law now includes pregnant women in active labor as one of the emergency cases which hospitals cannot refuse.
It also makes the hospital liable in case a patient dies due to the refusal of treatment by the medical facility.
According to Tambunting, the law would ensure the health of poor patients, and that they would not be put at even greater risk simply because they do not have enough money to pay the advanced deposit.