The Senate on Monday approved on third reading a bill establishing a general hospital in Bacolod City, to be known as the Bacolod City General Hospital (BCGH).

The hospital will cater to residents of the Lone District of Bacolod City, Negros Occidental.

“We need more hospitals—especially public hospitals,” stressed Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, author and co-sponsor of the Senate counterpart of the bill.

“Right now, the whole province of Negros Occidental has only one tertiary government hospital. Bacolod alone has a population of over half a million people,” he said.

“We saw how our hospitals have struggled throughout the pandemic. They’ve been performing at overcapacity, and our medical frontliners have been severely overworked,” he added.

“There is a clear need for more hospitals in the country, in order to reach out to and cater to more people, and also to alleviate the pressure on our existing hospitals,’’ he explained.

In the 2015 national census, Bacolod City was recorded to have 561,875 residents, making it the most populated city in Western Visayas. Its residents are serviced by the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH), which caters to the whole of Negros Occidental, at a 400-bed capacity.

“CLMMRH is already taking on double its bed capacity in order to service the whole of Negros Occidental. This is unreasonable,” Zubiri said.

“So Mayor Bing Leonardia, Representative Greg Gasataya, and I are working hard to make sure that the BCGH is established at the soonest possible time,’’ Zubiri said.