Cebu City Councilor Dave Tumulak. (Photo by Luel Galarpe)
CEBU CITY -- City Councilor Dave Tumulak plans to push for a measure seeking to collect tax from services of private hospitals, such as x-ray, electrocardiogram or ECG, and other laboratory procedures.
Tumulak said in an interview on Thursday that he would propose this measure that will prompt private hospitals to provide these same services to Cebu City residents for free.
"No tax money would actually be collected from private hospitals. In exchange for paying the tax, the hospitals would instead render laboratory services to the public for free," he said in Cebuano.
This, according to Tumulak, is a simple way of giving the taxpayers back their money through free laboratory services not just from public hospitals but from private medical institutions as well.
"With this measure, everybody would be able to avail of free x-ray, ECG, and other laboratory services in any hospital, private or public, in the city," said Tumulak.
The local legislator said the measure will also help decongest the patients in public hospitals, like the Cebu City Medical Center and Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.
Tumulak said Cebu City public hospitals are already overcrowded and could hardly accommodate the big daily turnout of patients needing x-ray and laboratory services.
"We have noticed that more and more patients are flocking to our public hospitals to avail of the free lab services and we need to address the situation," he said.
Tumulak said he is very optimistic his proposal would get the approval of the City Council as this would benefit all residents of the Queen City of the South. (PNA)
