The Department of Health (DOH) today responded to calls to provide a breakdown of how funds worth Php 9B for the construction of health infrastructure under the Bayanihan I and II were spent, emphasizing that the said funds were utilized to construct temporary medical isolation and quarantine facilities, field hospitals, dormitories, and to expand government hospital capacities through the procurement of various medical equipment.
Of the Php 4.49B provided under Bayanihan I, Php 4.36B was utilized as of December 31, 2020 to procure medical equipment such as mechanical ventilators, biological safety cabinets, laminar flow hoods, and biomedical microcentrifuges among other medical equipment essential to ensuring that hospitals will be caring for COVID-19 patients.
Meanwhile, of the Php 4.5B provided under Bayanihan II, Php 3.88B has been utilized as of December 31, 2020 for the construction of temporary medical isolation and quarantine facilities, field hospitals, dormitories for frontliners and expansion of government capacity all over the country. On the other hand, of the remaining Php 617M, Php308M has been utilized for the procurement of essential COVID-related equipment such as mechanical ventilators, portable x-ray machines, hemodialysis machines, high flow nasal cannula oxygen machines, and other equipment necessary for increasing laboratories’ testing capacities.
The DOH assured that every centavo of the questioned funds, as well as all other public funds provided to the Department are all accounted for and are available for the public to access and examine upon request. The DOH likewise said that it will provide the full expenditure reports to the offices of the Senators requesting for the said data.
The Department of Health emphasized that it is, and has always been, committed to upholding utmost integrity and transparency in fulfillment of its mandate to establish and maintain an accessible health system that provides quality health services to every Filipino. The DOH further emphasized that now is not the time to be fragmented in the pandemic response and called for unity from the rest of the government and the public as the country faces an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases. (PR)
