By Philippine News Agency-Dagupan

SAN FERNANDO CITY – No private hospital in Region 1 is joining the ‘hospital holiday’ declared last Friday by some private hospitals in Metro Manila.

Department of Health Assistant Regional Director Gloria Balboa said from their own monitoring, no private hospital in Pangasinan, La Union, Ilocos Sur and Ilocos Norte is joining the ‘hospital holiday’.

Private hospitals in Manila have declared their own holiday on Friday in protest over a newly approved law declaring as illegal the act of detaining or holding off of patient who cannot pay their hospital bills till they or their relatives can settle the same.

The hospitals were however required by the new law to make the patients or their guardians and relatives sign promissory notes guaranteeing settlement of their bills at soonest possible times.

Under the “hospital holiday”, private hospitals will not accept indigent patients on Friday, except those on emergency cases.

In Dagupan, a doctor who was newly elected as member of the city council, admitted that private hospitals are business enterprises that need to earn too.

Dr. Jesus Canto advised indigent patients who have little or no money to spend for their hospitalization to instead go to the Region 1 Medical Center in Dagupan City that is now at par with any existing private hospitals in the area.

Not only medical facilities were improved at R1MC, but also its staff, said Canto, who placed number 3 in the race for councilor of Dagupan City in the last election.

He said as former director of the R1MC, he hired and put on consultancy basis medical specialists from various hospitals in Region 1, including those from Manila, to ensure that R1MC can handle all cases.

As to the promissory note that private hospitals are to ask from patients who cannot pay their hospital bills, Canto said that based on his experience as once director of a private hospital, only three out of 100 people returned to settle their bills.