DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 16 December) – An executive of the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) urged Congress to approve the proposal to add 500 more beds in the government-owned hospital to serve more patients from all over Mindanao.
During Kapehan sa Dabaw on Monday, December 16, SPMC chief Dr. Ricardo Audan said that the hospital’s bed capacity needs to be expanded from 1,500 to 2,000 to address the shortage.
The hospital, the largest government hospital in the country under the Department of Health (DOH), has been operating beyond its capacity, inconveniencing patients.
To accommodate more patients, Audan said that there were days when the medical staff had to put more beds in the hospital hallways as the number of patients swelled, allowing it to serve 300 or 400 more clients besides its existing capacity.
“It’s already very congested, especially in the emergency room. We put more beds in the hallways. Imagine, the SPMC is the only government hospital in Davao City,” he said.
In April 2024, Audan attended the deliberation of the Committee on Health of the House of Representatives, where he justified the proposal to expand the SPMC to 2,000 beds.
He expressed hopes the legislators will support the call to enhance the capacity of the SPMC since increasing the number of beds will entail expanding the budget, particularly to pay additional medical doctors and nurses.
He said they expect that the expansion could happen in three years or earlier if there are politicians who will incessantly rally to pass a measure expanding the capacity of the SPMC.
Last November 2024, Audan noted that the SPMC acquired a P350-million robotic technology called the Da Vinci Surgical System, a world-class technology that could help save more lives in Mindanao.
He said that 40 medical staff members have enrolled in the training to be qualified to operate the device, which is expected to start operating during the first quarter of 2025.
With this new technology, Audan said that the SPMC will be the first hospital of the DOH in the Visayas and Mindanao capable of performing robotic-assisted surgery.
He said that there are currently four hospitals in the country that are using this technology, but all of them are located in Manila.
Aside from the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH), three private hospitals have been using such technology, according to him.
He said that the robotics technology will be put up at the nearly completed building of the Mindanao Kidney Transplant Institute of the SPMC.
Audan said the robotics technology is capable of surgical specialties, including, among others, ophthalmology, orthopedics, ENT (eyes, nose, throat), and obstetrics and gynecology.
In 2019, the UP-PGH acquired the “Da Vinci Surgical System, allowing surgeons to perform robotic-assisted minimally-invasive procedures, affording minimal tissue handling and blood loss.” (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)
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