Citizens may start submitting complaints or reports on idle super health centers with the launch of the Department of Health (DOH) ‘Oplan Bantay Super Health’ on Monday.
Health Promotion Bureau Director Tina Marasigan on Saturday said that this complaint desk is part of DOH’s Citizen Participatory Audit.
‘The Department of Health receives reports about idle super health centers, that’s why the agency will launch Oplan Bantay Super Health on Lunes that will serve as a citizens’ complaint desk,’ Marasigan, speaking in Filipino, said in a segment on DZMM Teleradyo.
Marasigan said that citizens can send pictures or videos of what they observe as ‘idle’ hospitals in their areas. After his appearance at an inter-agency coordination meeting with the Independent Commission for Infrastructure on Friday, Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said that the number of non-operational super health centers across the country rose to 300. Herbosa submitted the list of these facilities to the probe body for further investigation.
During an inspection of a super health center in Marikina City, which he tagged as ‘non-operational,’ Herbosa revealed that 297 super health centers across the country are ‘non-operational or non-functional.’ He said that only phase one of the project, worth 21.5 million, was completed. The DOH also inspected another super health center in Antipolo City, which the agency tagged as completed but non-functional. The agency said that the over P18 million facility only began operating on Thursday, ahead of Herbosa’s visi,t despite being completed in 2024. /mr