Marcos Jr. Admin Approves 1st PPP Project Cancer Center

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) approved the establishment of the University of the Philippines General Hospital (UP-PGH) Cancer Center, making it the first public-private partnership (PPP) project of the Marcos Jr. administration.

Presidential Communications Secretary Cheloy Velicaria-Garafil said the NEDA board, chaired by President Marcos Jr., approved the establishment of a ₱6 billion 300-bed capacity hospital.

“The project aims to UP-PGH’s dedicated cancer hospital that will modernize its health infrastructure and offer comprehensive, high-quality, and affordable oncology services towards enhancing the country’s health service quality and capacity for cancer care,” Garafil said.

Garafil said the project will solicit funds through public bidding and will be structured as a 30-year Buil-Operate-Transfer (BOI) arrangement under the BOT Law.

The BOT approach is an agreement that grants a concession to a private partner to finance, build, and operate a project over a fixed term.

After that fixed period, the project would be returned to the public entity that granted the concession.

Garafil added that the private partner would design, engineer, construct, and commission the entire new hospital building, procure, maintain, and provide for the replacement of medical and non-medical equipment.

The private partner would also maintain non-clinical services for the entire hospital building, operate relevant commercial activities, provide clinical services to private-paying patients, assume all associated costs of manpower, and consumables, and undertake clinical teaching and research.

NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said the UP-PGH Cancer Center was one of the seven infrastructure projects approved by the NEDA board that would “significantly contribute to achieving our social and economic transformation goal in the medium term.” He also assured the public the cancer center would not be privatized.

“This is a build-operate-transfer project, so the private sector or private partner will build the facility, they will design, they will engineer, and construct the facility, then transfer it to the UP-PGH,” he said.

Source: Inquirer.net