KMU supports mass leave of PGH doctors; 'Stop the spread of privatization disease in PGH'

Labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno echoes the call of workers – doctors and health professionals at the UP Philippine General Hospital (PGH) – against the intervention of Malacañang and the UP administration in PGH operations, and further enjoins them and the public to fend off the planned full privatization of PGH.

PGH doctors protest the UP Board of Regents' (BOR) sudden replacement of their Hospital Director Dr. Jose Gonzales without due process last Feb. 25. The Malacanang-appointed regents in the BOR did not count in the vote of militant sectoral representatives of the UP community against the removal of Gonzales, thus upholding the installment of the new hospital director.

Dr. Enrique Domingo, the UP BOR's appointed director, is known to be supportive of further privatization measures for PGH.

More than 100 doctors have already filed for leave since last week. But the doctors still continue to fulfill their essential duties to attend to patients' needs.

“We salute the doctors' courageous act to defy the tyrannical imposition of a new PGH director and the infringement of Malacañang-appointed UP administrators on democratic governance in the hospital,” said KMU chairperson Elmer “Bong” Labog.

“We know that the forceful change in PGH leadership is only an open wound for a more severe disease – the looming full-scale privatization of PGH that will deny health service to majority of our people.

“Health service, one of the most essential to protect people's well being, is also one of the most neglected and least subsidized by the government. PGH privatization will be a fatal attack to the people as private corporations have proven to render health care accessible only to the paying and profitable elite,” Labog said.

Some functions in some departments of PGH, such as in the cardiology and neurology departments, are already in the control of private companies and have made the services more expensive.

“Malacañang wants the privatization disease to spread faster in PGH with the new hospital director. But with the continued fight of its doctors and the wide support of the people, we can combat this disease and help in the ailing health care situation of the country,” Labog added. #