By Charissa Luci-Atienza
Las Piñas City Rep. Camille Villar wants to increase the bed capacity of the Las Piñas General Hospital & Satellite Trauma Center (LPGHSTC) from the current 200 to 500 beds, citing the increasing number of patients from all over the south of Metro Manila and its nearby cities and municipalities.
(Camille Villar official facebook page/MANILA BULLETIN)
The House Deputy Majority Leader filed House Bill 3314 to call for the expansion of the hospital’s healthcare operations, upgrade its facilities, and hire more health care professionals to further improve the quality of its health care services.
“While the LPGHSTC management strives to deliver efficient service, reality and statistics show that for the past five (5) years, the number of patients accommodated in the hospital has been steadily increasing,” she said.
“Nowadays, the LPGHSTC’s Out Patient Department (OPD) experiences patients overflow daily due to the increase of hospital services offered to the patients, while the hospital’s OB-Gyne Department
frequently accommodates two to three patients in one single bed. The same holds true with other wards of the hospital,” she added.
Under HB 3314, Villar, a stalwart of the Nacionalista Party (NP), proposes to increase the bed capacity of the LPGHSTC for a period of four years as determined by the Department of Health (DoH).
She noted that since 2014, there has been 58 percent-increase in the number of admissions where two or three patients have been sharing in one single bed.
According to her, the OPD and emergency patients also increased by 115 percent and 14 percent, respectively, which can hardly be accommodated by the hospital due to its limited bed-capacity, budget and space.
“Given this scenario, it becomes imperative to increase LPGHSTC’s bed capacity from its present 200 bed capacity to 500 beds in order to accommodate the constant increase of patients from all over the South of Metro Manila and its nearby cities and municipalities,” Villar said.
HB 3314 tasks the Secretary of the DoH to immediately include in the department’s program the implementation of the proposed Act.
The funding of the proposed Act shall be included in the annual General Appropriations Act (GAA).
The LPGHSTC was founded in 1977, and was called as the Las Piñas Emergency Hospital.
It was renamed as the Las Piñas District Hospital (LPDH) in 1984.
Republic Act (RA) No. 7539, which was enacted on May 22, 1992, increased the bed capacity of the hospital from 25 to 50 beds.
The DoH, through its department orders, then upgraded LPDH from a district hospital to a general hospital.
The LPDH was converted into a medical center and was renamed as the Las Piñas General Hospital and Satellite Trauma Center after RA No. 9240 was approved on 10 February 2004. The 2004 law increased the bed capacity of the hospital from 50 to 200.