A P2 budget for daily maintenance medicines is all that 240,000 veterans, retired soldiers and other patients can expect at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center next year.
Dr. Dominador Chiong Jr., director of the hospital established by the US government for Filipino veterans, said the proposed allocation of P160 million for VMMC is a far cry from the P585 million they proposed.
“Sana madagdagan po, with a budget of P160 million for 200,000 patients, we can only afford to give patients a daily allotment of P2 for their maintenance medicines,” Chiong told lawmakers during the Tuesday hearing of the Department of National Defense budget proposal for 2021 called by the House Committee on Appropriations chaired by ACT CIS Partylist Rep. Eric Go-Yap.
The VMMC chief lamented that the hospital will practically be scraping the bottom of the barrel when veterans start going back to the hospital to get shots as soon as the COVID-19 vaccine is made available to the public.
Chiong is confident that the vaccine will be released to the public in a few months but admitted the VMMC does not have funds for this.
He said they will be needing at least P400 million to give vaccine shots to the country’s veterans.
Magdalo Partylist Rep. Manuel Cabochan called on the House appropriations panel to consider increasing the VMMC budget, pointing out that additional funds will also strengthen the capability of the hospital in the treatment of COVID-19 patients.
According to Chiong the VMMC has been assisting government’s anti-COVID-19 fight as a referral hospital.
“Since March 11, we have seen over 4,000 patients, 483 of them were found positive (to COVID-19),” he disclosed.
At least 123 more COVID-19 patients were health workers and hospital staff, he disclosed.
“We can still cope with their needs simply because President Duterte gave us special funds of P50 million,” stated Chiong.