Naga Hospital, infirmary up for DOH 2018 accreditation

By Jason B. Neola

NAGA CITY --- After ironing out some kinks in its operations, the Naga City Hospital (NCH) readies itself for the scheduled accreditation of the city-operated hospital by the regional office of the Department of Health (DOH). Other than the NCH, which is a Level 1 hospital, also seeking accreditation is the Our Lady of Lourdes Infirmary in Barangay Carolina, here. City Health Officer Vito Borja, who concurrently serves as officer in charge of both hospitals, which have already been issued with licenses to operate, the two health facilities are still required to undergo accreditation by the licensing division of the DOH. “The DOH will check on these health facilities for some deficiencies and violations, if any, to further improve the delivery of our services. The DOH, as our dependable partner, has been supportive of our programs on health and provides us always with recommendations after its personnel performed the accreditation processes to better our services,” says Borja. Part of accreditation process will be the inspection of hospital apparatus and instruments required by the DOH for Level 1 and for infirmary, respectively. To be inspected also are the manpower complementation of the hospitals, their emergency medicines, the hospitals’ ambulances which should be equipped with the required gadgets and devices, particularly those for emergency situations. “Even the patient’s charts are subject for checking. Charts are one of the hospital’s important documents where the DOH personnel can get an idea on how the two hospitals operate and the way the nurses and doctors treat their patients,” Borja said. Last year, the city hospital was reported to have suffered some snags brought about by shortage in the number of physicians, as well as medicine supplies. These were, however, immediately resolved with the hiring of new doctors and the approval of request to increase the hospital’s petty cash from P150,000 to P300,000. The beefing up of petty cash was prompted by the city government’s compliance with PhilHealth’s no-balance billing (NBB) policy, a privilege given to qualified PhilHealth members. If a patient is covered by the NBB policy, he/she no longer needs to pay for his/her own hospitalization at any government hospital and selected private medical centers nationwide. It is the government that pays for the member’s hospital expenses without prejudice to the quality of service and attention given to the patient. NBB policy, therefore, provides that no other fees or expenses shall be charged or be paid for by the indigent patients above and beyond the packaged rates during their confinement period.