EDITORIAL - The CCMC dilemma

The new building of the Cebu City Medical Center was supposed to partially open next month as promised by the local government. But the opening will not push through because works on phase 2 of the construction are now in full swing.

Assistant city engineer Nilo Igot blamed the government’s procurement process as the cause of the delay. He said the delay has something to do with the bidding and other procurement procedures like the number of days needed for publication that they had to follow.

This development means the city hospital will continue to operate in the building occupied by the Bureau of Fire Protection-7. The two agencies have been sharing the same building since the powerful 2013 earthquake that badly damaged the medical center.

This is not the first time the opening of the new CCMC building was postponed. Last year, it was announced that the structure will start to be operational by March. But construction problems caused the contractor to miss the schedule.

It has been four years since the construction of the new city hospital building started. However, budgetary constraints, design, and other concerns have seriously affected the phase of the construction, which should have been finished by now.

In the meantime, many of the city’s poor have been forced to seek medical assistance from private hospital amid the city hospital’s limited operations. For years, they have been forced to spend more since they need to avail of the services of other hospitals, considering the inadequate capability of CCMC.

Of all the present projects of the city government, the 10-story new CCMC building should have been classified as urgent because it is the only local medical facility that caters mainly to poor patients.

We don’t really know when the medical center’s new building will finally open. The city government and the contractor do not have to announce a date if they really have no intention to fulfill their promise.