The leadership of the House of Representatives has supported the bill authorizing the Department of Health to set and approve the bed capacity of all government hospitals.
The House, led by Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, approved HB 9155 by a unanimous vote of 177 lawmakers.
The bill, authored by a Baguio City lawmaker, gives the DOH the power to address the mismatch in occupancy and improve the quality of government health services.
The bill mandates that through an administrative order, the DOH shall determine the bed capacities of government hospitals, subject to specific guidelines that shall be issued and promulgated within three months after the Act’s enactment.
The bill tasks the DOH to provide Congress, through the House Committee on Health and the Senate Committee on Health and Demography, an annual report of hospitals with approved bed capacity, along with the necessary funding requirements.
Likewise, the secretary of Health shall include in the DOH’s program the funding requirements for the increase in bed capacity of each of the hospitals in accordance with the Philippine Hospital Development Plan and the Modernization/Development Plan of each hospital.