FOUR specialty hospitals in Quezon City that are doubling as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) treatment facilities will suffer budget cuts amounting to P961 million next year, Rep. Precious Hipolito Castelo of the city’s second district said Friday.

“It’s ironic that we are in the middle of a pandemic and we are not giving our hospitals enough financial support. We are even cutting their budgets,” Castelo said.

Based on budget documents submitted to Congress, Castelo said the Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP), a COVID-19 referral hospital, would have P405 million in 2022, P100 million lower than its P505-million budget this year.

The National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI), which also treats patients suffering from the highly infection novel coronavirus and its various variants, will have P9 million less than its present funding of P1,271,442,000, she added.

Castelo noted that financial subsidy for the Philippine Heart Center (PHC) would go down by P29 million to P1,766,827,000.

She pointed out that the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC), which cares for new coronavirus-infected children, would suffer the biggest budget cut of P823 million, which would reduce its 2022 budget to P1,110,891,000.

Castelo urged the House of Representatives, which is now tackling the proposed P5.024-trillion national budget for next year, to restore the funding cuts for the four hospitals in Quezon City.

“We should increase funds for government hospitals at this time, instead of slashing them. If there is no room for more funding, at least we should maintain their appropriations at their 2021 levels,” she said.

At the same time, Castelo called on the Lung Center and the PCMC to hire more workers to fill vacant permanent positions.

She said budget documents show that the Lung Center has 767 vacancies, while the PCMC has 554 vacant positions.

She said the documents also show that NKTI’s 1,882 permanent jobs and the Heart Center’s 2,504 positions are all filled.

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Ryan Ponce Pacpaco