Residents of Makati City will welcome the New Year with a new gift from the city government after the recent inauguration of the new eight-storey annex of the city-run Ospital ng Makati (OsMak) in Barangay Pembo.

Starting this January, all Outpatient Department (OPD) services and operations will be transferred to the second floor of the annex, which has been named after the late Guia D. Bautista, former chief of the Makati Health Plus (MHP) Office and president of the Ospital ng Makati Foundation since 1988 until her demise last September.

Aside from housing OsMak’s clinics for Internal Medicine, Surgery, Pediatrics, and Orthinolaryngology, the “Guia D. Bautista Ambulatory Care Complex” will also accommodate a Dental Clinic and an Employees’ Clinic.

According to Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, the city government has prioritized the transfer of the OPD to the annex to accommodate the increasing number of patients going to the city-run hospital for consultation, a majority of which are members of the Makati Health Plus Program who are registered Yellow Card holders. To date, around 166,116 Yellow Cards have been issued to residents, city workers and employees of selected national government agencies.

The mayor said the transfer has freed up much-needed space for the Emergency Department, and the old OPD section will be rehabilitated for the planned expansion of the Emergency Room and its auxiliary units.

Meanwhile, the other floors of the annex will be utilized for other hospital services, and are targeted to be fully operational within 2010. The ground floor will hold the Radiology Department, where X-ray, CT scan, mammography, ultrasound, MRI, and fluoroscopy tests will be housed. Upon its transfer, the former space it occupied in the main building will be converted for the expansion of the Laboratory and Pathology sections.

The third floor, which is connected to the main building through a bridgeway, will serve as an extension of the Pediatrics Department while the fourth floor will house the Operating Room Complex, which can accommodate up to five patients all at once. Once operational, it will bring the number of operating rooms of the hospital to eight, since there are three in the main building.

The fifth floor of the OsMak annex will hold the Intensive Care Unit and Critical Care Unit, while the entire sixth and seventh floors will serve as wards and private rooms. The topmost floor will be dedicated for the Records section, audio-visual room, and the doctors and employees’ lounge.

Binay, together with Makati Representative Mar-Len Abigail Binay-Campos of the second district, City Councilor Jejomar Erwin Binay Jr. and Acting City Administrator Marjorie de Veyra, inaugurated the facility last Tuesday.