MANILA—The House Committee on Ways and Means on Monday approved the draft substitute bill seeking to establish the National Center for Geriatric Health and Research Institute (NCGHRI).
In an online hearing, committee Chairman Albay Rep. Joey Salceda accepted the tax provision of the measure, which the House Committee on Health earlier approved.
The substitute bill is a consolidated version of House Bills 485, 604, 958, 3949, 7101, 7169, 8739 and 8799, which seeks to establish the NCGHRI and dedicated medical facilities and geriatric specialty centers in all Department of Health (DOH) accredited hospitals all over the country.
The measure provides that all donations, endowments, contributions, grants and bequests used actually, directly and exclusively for the proposed NCGHRI shall be exempted from donor’s tax.
The NCGHRI shall also be exempt from income tax, and customs duty levied by the government. It shall also avail itself of the tax expenditure subsidy administered by the Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB), subject to the provisions of the National Internal Revenue Code.
House Committee on Health Chairman and Quezon Rep. Angelina Tan said the NCGHRI would be mandated to establish, operate, equip, and maintain an integrated medical institution specializing in geriatric health services. Geriatrics is a branch of medicine that focuses on the health care of elderly people through prevention and treatment of their diseases and disabilities.
Speaker Lord Allan Velasco, author of the bill, said specialized geriatric care will lower the average length of hospital stay among elderly patients from 7.3 days to 6.7 days, minimize hospital costs to around P50,000 per patient, and improve overall care of senior citizens.
Velasco added that a hospital specializing in geriatric care can help bridge the persistent shortage of geriatricians in the Philippines since it can become a training ground for doctors who seek to pursue a specialization in geriatric health.
It will also establish geriatric health as a viable field of specialty and incentivize new and upcoming doctors to become geriatricians.
“This bill seeks to make the country’s commitment to universal health care more genuinely felt by the elderly population and give our almost 10 million senior citizens the quality health care they rightfully deserve,” he said. PNA