SPMC the vile critics didn’t know

IF the opposition and their propaganda machinery think they scored big with what they claim was a damaging revelation that the Southern Philippines Medical Center received a huge sum of reimbursements from the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, they better save the cow for their party because their tirade displays their ignorance.

If they think that the amount of PhP326 million is huge for one hospital, they better look again because simple arithmetic will tell them SPMC is in fact shortchanged. As usual, Maria Ressa, the Manila-based darling of the western press, thought she stumbled on a huge stockpile of explosives that can be detonated and reduce her pet peeve Rodrigo Duterte to smithereens. She did try to ignite some but it backfired. Doctors and health workers at SPMC were mad by the careless insinuations of Ressa for not checking on her facts but thank her anyway, for now, it is known nationwide that SPMC, which is based in Davao City, is, in fact, the biggest tertiary hospital in the country which means it is very well equipped and with a phalanx of specialist physicians.

At this point let me quote verbatim what Dr. Bernard Chiew, a Davao City-based internal medicine and adult cardiology specialist, has to say:

1.  SPMC is in Davao City. Davao Regional Medical Center (DRMC) is in another province, at Tagum City in Davao Del Norte.

2.  SPMC is the biggest government hospital in the country with 1500 beds. PGH is second with 1100 beds.

3.  How big is SPMC? For the Department of Internal Medicine alone, which is largely responsible for taking care of COVID patients, there are 83 medical residents and 95 medical consultants. Our department is bigger than the whole medical staff and trainees of most hospitals.

The total number of residents/fellows and consultants for all the departments of SPMC? 475 residents and fellows, 399 consultants.

4.  SPMC is the ONLY government hospital in Davao City, serving the whole of Mindanao as a medical center. For SPMC, there is no such thing as "puno na ang hospital. Lumipat na lang kayo sa iba!". The buck stops here.

5.  As for Covid-19, SPMC is the only Covid center in the Davao area. BECAUSE WE ARE SMART HERE IN DAVAO, we centralized the treatment of Covid. Until recently, private hospitals were not allowed to admit Covid. Now, only mild cases of COVID are allowed in private hospitals. It is still SPMC which is ground zero for the COVID treatment. By doing this, we are able to maximize manpower and resources and streamline our response.

6.  SPMC is not just an "infirmary clinic" that others make it appear. Since the start of the Covid Pandemic, on average, SPMC is taking care of more than 130 in-patient Covid cases daily (about 100 adult Covid patients and 30 pediatric Covid cases). This does not include hundreds of other non-Covid  cases in the hospital.

7.  In Metro Manila, unlike in Davao City's SPMC, PGH does not bear the brunt of ALL Covid cases. Covid cases are being admitted in private hospitals and other government hospitals in Metro Manila.

8.  Actually, Metro Manila got the biggest share of Covid-a9 funds at PhP592 million (PGH, National Kidney and Transplant Institute, and Quirino Memorial Medical Center). Davao CIty (SPMC) got PhP326 million.

So! For those of you who just comment without doing research, it's either you are ignorant or intellectually dishonest. There is still hope for the ignorant but there is a special place in hell for the intellectually dishonest.

P.S.

1.  PGH was mentioned just to give context to this post since the ignorant and intellectually dishonest, Maria Ressa contrasted SPMC to PGH. I just wanted to show how much SPMC has developed and improved the last 20 yrs. Besides, our colleagues in PGH are our friends. Most of the consultants at SPMC had their training in PGH. This is not about SPMC vs PGH. It will never be SPMC vs PGH.

2.  As for the anomalies in PHIC, we are one with the nation that this must be fully investigated. Corruption in PHIC has gone on for so long. We really do not care whether the culprits will rot in jail or burn in hell (just like the intellectually dishonest ones). The corruption at PHIC must stop”.

That’s a mouthful from Dr. Bernard Chiew. Let’s look at how SPMC attained its present status.

SPMC metamorphosed from what it was -- Davao General Hospital in the early 1960s then later as Davao Medical Center and into what it is now known today as the Southern Philippines Medical Center. Again, for the information of our legislators and the smarting Maria Ressa, the gradual improvements of SPMC was done not only through legislation which was mostly authored by the late Deputy Speaker Manuel Garcia and his two children, Vincent and Mylene, who served as representative, one after the other, of the 2nd district of Davao City up to now.

It pays that Davao City is known as “Little Tokyo”. There were official and private engagements and among these with two Rotary Clubs and a Foundation in Japan which donated P900-million for the construction of the first new big building that actually triggered the change of its name from DMC to SPMC and increases in bed capacity to 1,500, bigger than Phl General Hospital's 1.200. Japan International Cooperation Agency later funded the construction of about six more buildings in a sprawling area that cost PhP1-billion.

One of the added building within the SPMC compound is The Cancer Institute. a three-storey building with Adult Oncology in the West Wing and the 43-bedder Children’Cancer Institute in the East wing. This caters to patients from all over Mindanao and Visayas.

Dr. Mae Dolendo, head of the Children’s Cancer Institute said that for years they have been having international collaboration for capacity building, training, and program development through the House of Hope Foundation. The HHP is located in Margarita Village which serves as a transient home for cancer survivor and their guardians. The HHP building was donated by then-Mayor now Pres. Rodrigo Duterte years back. Duterte, who supports the Foundation since its inception had made it a habit to spend Christmas with children cancer patients up to now.

SPMC is Mindanao’s pride. It sits on a sprawling area which makes it the biggest of all public hospitals in the country, it has the biggest capacity in the number of beds, serves the biggest number of people year on year, it is the government flagship hospital in Mindanao with medical services found only in this part of the country. SPMC too has the biggest number of medical experts and nurses in its employ. It serves as the biggest and most rounded training center for doctors and nurses produced by now five schools for medicines namely the Davao Medical School Foundation, Brokenshire, the University of Southern Philippines, and now Jose Maria College. About the same number of schools for nurses and medical technologists among others do their training at SPMC too.

Because of its modern facilities, specialists, and consultants, SPMC’s churns a substantial amount of money from the number of paying patients. In short, it remits more to the Department of Health than what it receives contrary to what crystal ball writer Maria Ressa has been gossiping around.