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Patients, employees protest closure of Fabella Hospital
Patients and employees of the Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital protested the impending shutdown of the famed maternity hospital on Friday.
GMA News' Balita Pilipinas Ngayon reported that the patients and employees trooped outside of the hospital in Sta. Cruz, Manila to stress the importance of its maternity ward to impoverished mothers.
They said maternity healthcare was affordable at Fabella Hospital compared to private hospitals and that it had adequate medical facilities and equipment.
The protesters said they do not see a good reason why the hospital has to close down.
The private owners of the hospital, the subject of a BBC documentary named World's Busiest Maternity Ward in 2013, were the ones who decided to close down the facility within the year. It will however, be reopened in a different location.
The Fabella Hospital also houses the Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital School of Midwifery.
In 2015, the World Health Organization recognized the hospital "as a role mode of the World Health Organization-Western Pacific Region Office for its essential newborn care programs, which have been proven to reduce infant morbidity and mortality".
The Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital started as a six-bed clinic in Sampaloc, Manila and was called the "Maternity House" on November 9, 1920.
The clinic was founded by Dr. Jose Fabella, then chairman of the Public Welfare Board.
In 1922, the clinic added a pediatric section and a school of midwifery. In 1931, the Bureau of Health took control of the clinic and was transferred to the Bureau of Hospitals in 1947.
The facility moved to its present location in 1951.
In 1968, it was renamed as Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in honor of the hospital's founder. — APG, GMA News
