Big-ticket hospital PPPs up for bids in 2022

Big-ticket health-care public-private partnership (PPP) projects are coming in 2022, paving the way for the construction of needed hospital capacity in Metro Manila.

According to the PPP Center, it was readying the bidding for a new Philippine General Hospital (PGH) in Diliman, Quezon City, and a 300-bed PGH cancer center in Manila.

The two projects, worth about P26 billion, will be implemented by the University of the Philippines (UP), the project documents showed.

The PPP Center said in a separate statement the projects were in the “advanced stages” of evaluation by the Investment Coordination Committee (ICC) of the National Economic and Development Authority.

“Once approved, bidding for these critical health infrastructure projects may commence in the early quarters of 2022,” the PPP Center said in the statement.

Underprivileged Filipinos

The UP-PGH Diliman project was the larger of the two with an estimated project cost of P21.3 billion.

The integrated health-care facility, to rise in Quezon City, will include a 700-bed university teaching and research hospital, a college of medicine and genomic cancer research center.

Under the proposed structure, the private sector partner will design, build, finance and maintain the project via a 25-year cooperation period, excluding its construction. Meanwhile, the UP-PGH cancer center will be a 200 to 300 specialized facility with at least half of the total capacity dedicated to treating underprivileged Filipinos.

The P4.6-billion project will be located in the UP-PGH Ermita, Manila, site. It will be structured as a 30-year build-operate-transfer arrangement.

The PPP Center said two more regional hospitals of the Department of Health—Cagayan Valley Medical Center and Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center—were also submitted to the ICC for review and approval.

These were pitched to investors as early as 2019 with the goal of boosting the country’s hemodialysis facilities across the country.

The PPP Center said Cagayan Valley Medical Center would cost an estimated P330 million while Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center would cost P470 million.

Another upcoming project is the proposed Mariveles Mental Wellness Center Project, whose feasibility study started this year and is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2022, the PPP Center said. INQ