ILOILO CITY: Western Visayas Medical Center (WVMC), a retained hospital of the Department of Health, launched on Tuesday its comprehensive referral system manual to ensure proper coordination and channeling of patients to appropriate levels of care facilities. ‘With the implementation of the Universal Health Care, it is essential that we have a coordinated referral throughout the region. This would navigate our patients from the lower levels of care like the primary health centers, the level 1 hospitals, and level 2 hospitals towards WVMC as the end-referral hospital or the sub-specialty hospital for the region,’ Dr. Lemuel Umahag, Assistant Chief Medical Professional Staff for Specialty Centers, said in a press conference.
According to Philippines News Agency, Umahag stated that the channeling of referrals should be from the primary care center or barangay and municipal health centers, to Level 1 or district hospitals, to Level 2 or provincial hospitals, and tertiary care hospitals. He mentioned that they gradually implemented the referral system when they started a collaboration with district and provincial hospitals last year.
‘With proper coordination, we can control the cases coming in and being stepped down to different hospitals. With regards to the classification of cases, we want an increase in the tertiary and sub-specialty cases and a decrease of the primary and secondary cases,’ Umahag added.
Medical Center Chief II Dr. Joseph Dean Nicolo expressed that as an apex hospital, they wanted WVMC to cater to tertiary cases as much as possible. Nicolo noted that while they have 641 beds, most cases can be catered in district hospitals, thus preventing tertiary cases from being displaced. ‘We estimated to more or less free up 30 to 40 percent of our beds,’ he said.
Dr. Nicolo also mentioned that they have already conducted several meetings and discussions with municipal health offices and local government-managed hospitals to talk about the referral system. The launch of the referral system manual and the opening of the medical center chief gallery marked the beginning of the 75th founding anniversary celebrations of the hospital.
