Patients In Tents Required To Pay P1,000 If PhilHealth Is Unavailable
PATIENTS IN TENTS REQUIRED TO PAY – Due to the influx of COVID-19 cases, the majority of hospitals are under critical capacity.
As such, some hospitals placed patients inside medical tents stationed outside. But, according to Bayan Muna Rep. Ferdinand Gaite, hospitals actually make you pay for your stay inside the tents.
Furthermore, he alleged that the hospital charged his colleague a bill for P140,000 for an overnight stay. This equated to around P1,000 per hour because his colleague didn’t have any PhilHealth coverage.
According to an article from CNN, the lawmaker said:
“Nahihirapan na nga ‘yung mga pasyente then we aggravate the situation by imposing such policies that would negate the benefit they would have gotten from Philhealth,“
Meanwhile, PhilHealth acting Senior Vice President Neri Santiago emphasized that PhilHealth doesn’t include hospital tents in its benefits. However, Santiago said that it should be.
On the other hand, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III asked Gaite the name of the hospital. Moreover, he said that the rate of P1,000 per hour could be considered as “highway robbery”.
Gaite didn’t say the name of the hospital during the hearing. However, he told Duque that he would disclose the name of the hospital to him.
Currently, the Philippines has reported large surges of COVID-19 cases. This week, the country has documented on average, over 9,000 daily cases. Last year, the peak daily infections were around 6,000 plus.
Due to this, the government is floating the idea of extending the week-long enhanced community quarantine in the provinces under the new NCR Plus Bubble. This includes Metro Manila, Laguna, Bulacan, Rizal, and Cavite.
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