The Department of Health (DOH) will be submitting the list of the 297 ‘ghost’ health facilities to the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) tomorrow.
Health Secretary Ted Herbosa said he was invited to appear before the ICI tomorrow to testify about their findings on the non-functional and non-operational health centers nationwide.
The DOH previously found that 297 out of the more than 500 super health centers built under its Health Facilities Enhancement Program were uncompleted or non-operational.
Yesterday, Herbosa personally looked into one of the 297 super health centers located in Marikina. Only phase one of the proposed four-story health center has been completed.
Herbosa said P21 million has been allotted for the project that was allegedly inserted into the DOH budget under the General Appropriations Act.
‘To me this is a waste of money because the P21 million was stagnant. Did it serve a single patient? No,’ Herbosa pointed out.
He said he already instructed all DOH regional directors to check all the health centers in their jurisdiction and identify which projects are delayed and non-operational.
The proposed construction of super health centers started in 2021 but almost 300 are yet to be completed or have been completed but are still not operational today.
The construction of a health center to be operated by a local government unit costs between P12 million to P20 million, depending on the size. It takes around one to two years for it to be completed, Herbosa said.
The health chief said the DOH intends to make all 297 super health centers operational to prevent government hospitals from reaching their full capacity.
Meanwhile, Akbayan party-list Rep. Chel Diokno yesterday questioned the inclusion in the 2026 national budget of the payment to the health workers who served during the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘That raises a lot of questions. Why is it only now? It’s been too long and it is still there. Who has the accountability for this? Why is this happening? This should have been settled a long time ago,’ Diokno asked in an interview with ABS-CBN News.
‘We know how much sacrifice was made by our health workers in that time and they should have been duly compensated, ever since,’ Diokno said.