The vision of a public hospital in Davao City’s Third District will soon move closer to reality.
University of the Philippines President Danilo Concepcion joins Davao City officials in a groundbreaking ceremony for the Davao City Public Hospital (DCPH) on December 20, 2022, at the University of the Philippines Mindanao (UPMin) campus at Mintal, Davao City.
The DCPH will provide health care and medical intervention for citizens in the geographically-remote Third District and relieve part of the burden off the Southern Philippines Medical Center, currently the only public hospital in the city.
The City Government will shoulder the funding, construction, land development, and operation of the DCPH. UPMin will provide the land, free of charge, in line with UP’s mandate as a public service university.
The Davao City Council approved the “Davao City Hospital Ordinance” on May 4, 2021. In addition, it authorized City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio to sign the Memorandum of Agreement with UP on behalf of the City, which she did on June 7, 2021.
Concepcion signed the agreement for the University, which the UP Board of Regents confirmed on August 26, 2021.
The agreement has a term of 25 years, after which the City will turn over the DCPH to UP.
The City held public consultations with the site’s informal settlers before project implementation, in line with the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992.
The DCPH will also serve as a teaching and training hospital with an accredited residency program for the proposed UP Mindanao medical education program. It will adopt a community-relevant curriculum and a step-ladder approach to encourage its graduates to serve in Mindanao, which will address the shortage of medical practitioners in the southern Philippines.
The 3.28-hectare DCPH site is within the UPMin property, described as Lot 129-K-2, with a Transfer Certificate of Title 346863.
A Director will head the DCPH with support from a Management Board composed of the Davao City Mayor, the UP Mindanao Chancellor, the Dean or OIC of the UP Mindanao College of Medicine, the City Treasurer, the Philippine General Hospital Director, and a fifth member.
The City Council envisions the DCPH to be a 100-bed Level III Training Hospital that will provide services for all kinds of medical care. The services stipulated are consulting specialists in Medicine, Pediatrics, Obstetrics-Gynecology (Ob-Gyne), and Surgery. In addition, it will have Emergency and Out-patient Services with a Respiratory Unit, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Unit. The ordinance pledges Isolation facilities, a General Intensive Care Unit, Surgical/Maternity facilities, a High-risk Pregnancy Unit, Ambulatory Surgical Clinic, a Dental Clinic, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and a Dialysis Clinic.
The support services will include a Tertiary Clinical Laboratory with Histopathology, a Blood Bank, 3rd Level X-Ray, and a Pharmacy.
