FOLLOWING changes in the blueprint, the construction of the P1.2-billion UST Hospital extension building finally started last October, and is expected to be completed in less than three years.
Funds for the construction of the 12-story building will come from the hospital’s profit, according to UST Rector Fr. Herminio Dagohoy, O.P.
“The initial cost [was] borrowed from the University [but] the whole thing will actually be generated by the hospital,” Dagohoy said in an interview. “The construction will run up to three years, so it could be easy for the hospital to catch up with the construction bill.”
Work was expected to begin last June but was delayed due to adjustments and revisions in the plans that took about a year, said Dagohoy.
“Kasi ‘yung mga details nito ‘yung madugo. It’s not easy to come up with so many details.”
Dagohoy said the extension building will help accommodate more patients and serve as training ground for Medicine students.
“The purpose is, of course, to upgrade the facilities of the hospital, [which] is a training hospital, [to] catch up with the development of the industry [and] to serve the needs of the students in the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery,” said Dagohoy. The extension building will be a “much bigger facility.”
“The idea is really to enlarge the ancillary services of the hospital because at the present, it is very small,” the Rector said.
The extension building will also have an expanded eye center and operating rooms. The ground floor will house basic operations such as dietary, laundry, and garbage services.
Ancillary services, reception, and admission offices will be on the second and third floors while nine operating rooms will occupy the entire fourth floor.
Medical equipment like x-ray, cerebral transcript scan, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasound machines will be on the fifth floor.
Patient rooms and other hospital departments will be on the sixth to 12th floors.
In 2007, hospital officials proposed to build a P3-billion, 17-story medical tower, but this was scrapped following a dispute within Filipino Dominicans that led to the resignation of top UST officials.
The extension building is expected to be ready by June 2015. Lord Bien G. Lelay
