Victorias City gets healthcare boost after PBBM signs hospital law

BACOLOD CITY – The City of Victorias in Negros Occidental is getting a healthcare boost for its residents and those from the adjacent localities after President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. signed into law Republic Act (RA) 12070, creating the Victorias City General Hospital.

"It is now a law. All Victoriasanons will soon have their own hospital and no longer need to travel far," said Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) Director General Jose Francisco Benitez, who authored the bill when he was the third district representative, said in a statement on Thursday.

The bill for RA 12070, which became law on Wednesday, was sponsored by Senator Christopher Lawrence Go, chair of the Committee on Health, in the Senate.

Benitez said establishing the Victorias City General Hospital is "crucial in providing the people of Victorias and nearby residents of the third district wider access to affordable and quality healthcare."

In a separate statement, Go said the approval of local hospital bills focuses on upgrading and establishing healthcare facilities to better meet local needs, adding that the health pandemic saw the need to capacitate and improve the government health facilities.

As provided in RA 12070, the city government "shall manage the Victorias City General Hospital and prepare, in consultation with the Department of Health (DOH), a hospital development plan that is aligned with the Philippine Health Facility Development Plan."

While Victorias City shall provide funds to establish the hospital, the Secretary of Health shall include in the DOH's subsidy program the support for capital outlay requirements, it added.

Currently, the northern Negros city is also constructing a new main hospital building for the local government-funded Abelardo and Remedios Bantug Memorial Hospital.

Previously known as the Kaayong Lawas Foundation Hospital, the healthcare facility is being developed by the administration of Mayor Javier Miguel Benitez into a higher-level hospital after the Victorias Kaayong Lawas Foundation Inc. donated the 2,000-square meter lot and the building to the city government. (PNA)