We need more hospitals

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor ERIC T. LORETIZO Sports Editor (On Leave) RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

The country is now celebrating National Hospital Week and, predictably, Department of Health Officials will have issued memorandums to the scanty hospitals all over the islands, reminding them of it, and directing them to put up some activities to make people aware of their existence. Ironically, however, there are very few places in the country that will have some justification for observing hospital week. This is because there are still very few towns and cities that have hospitals, or even health centers and clinics that offer the services expected of them.

In Negros Occidental, for instance, what is the percentage of cities and towns with their own hospitals against those that do not have any? This lack is underscored everytime ambulances from the various government units outside Bacolod City come wailing down the streets at all times of the day and night, bringing in patients who are suffering from some serious ailments that their clinics and centers cannot cope with, or even accident victims, some of whom are often so seriously injured that they do not reach the city's hospitals on time.

It is difficult to understand why, in all these years, our government has not given the need for hospitals more attention than it has allotted to other projects that are not even as vital to the lives and well-being of our citizenry. If the government cannot, by itself, fund the establishment and maintenance of hospitals in all our towns and cities, why can it not extend subsidies to private organizations that may be willing to run them? While it is true that some banks offer hospital financing, the interests charged on whatever loans they grant may be so prohibitive as to turn away proponents.

Let us now hope - and pray - that our legislators will ponder on this and perhaps make sure that, by the time the next Hospital Week comes around, we will have started putting up this very necessary facility in strategic parts of every province in the country.*