“Heartless” is how many residents of Ormoc City, Leyte described the abrupt closure of a major hospital in this city.
The closure of the Ormoc Maternity and Children’s Hospital has left more than a shuttered building in its wake.
It has displaced healthcare workers, unsettled patients, and ignited a growing public unease over how power is exercised when livelihoods and lives are at stake.
As the city government stands firm on its decision, questions now center not only on alleged contractual violations but on the manner, speed, and opacity with which the closure was carried out.
Mayor Lucy Torres-Gomez ordered the immediate shutdown of the nearly 97-year-old hospital, citing breaches of a 25-year memorandum of agreement (MOA) that allowed the private institution to occupy city-owned land.
City officials maintain that the hospital failed to fulfill its obligation to provide free or subsidized care to indigent mothers and children, an obligation tied to its nominal lease of ₱1,000 per month.
They further allege deficiencies in documentation, questionable financial reporting, and an unauthorized sublease of part of the property.
And for these alleged violations, Mayor Torres-Gomez shut down a clinic that has served Ormocanons for over 97 years. Worse, the shutdown allegedly did not follow due process.
Yet while the city government has repeatedly outlined these allegations in broad terms, it has declined to publicly release detailed records, audit findings, or timelines that would allow the public to independently assess the gravity and immediacy of the violations.
In a city where public land and public health intersect, this lack of disclosure has fueled criticism that enforcement has come without transparency.
What has amplified public anger is the human cost of the decision. The closure reportedly rendered dozens of healthcare workers, nurses, midwives, aides, and support staff, jobless within just a couple of days.
Many had served the hospital for years, some for decades, caring for generations of Ormocanons.
There was no publicly announced transition plan, no phased compliance period disclosed, and no clear coordination outlined to cushion the impact on workers suddenly stripped of their livelihoods.
City officials insist the action was necessary and long overdue, arguing that complaints from residents about limited access to indigent services prompted closer scrutiny.
According to the mayor’s office, these complaints triggered reviews that revealed the hospital’s alleged failure to submit complete reports on charity patients and services rendered beyond PhilHealth coverage.
However, critics point out that if such failures were systemic and long-standing, the question remains why decisive action came only now, and why it came in the form of immediate closure rather than corrective enforcement.
The city has also raised concerns about alleged discrepancies between the hospital’s declared income and tax reports, as well as an alleged sublease of city property to a third party without approval.
These are serious accusations, but without the release of supporting documents, contracts, or figures, they remain assertions rather than publicly verifiable facts.
For many residents, being asked to accept the city’s word without evidence is precisely what undermines confidence in the decision.
Founded in 1929, the Ormoc Maternity and Children’s Hospital has long been a fixture in the city’s healthcare landscape. Ironically, despite its prominence, there is limited publicly accessible information identifying its founder or current private owners in detail.
This opacity on both sides, private and public, has complicated the debate over accountability, leaving workers and patients caught between institutions pointing fingers while offering few answers.
The city government has assured residents that other facilities, including Ormoc District Hospital and private hospitals and clinics, can absorb patients affected by the closure.
Health advocates caution, however, that maternal and neonatal care is not easily interchangeable.
Trust, continuity, and proximity matter, particularly for low-income families who relied on the hospital’s services, however imperfect those services may have been.
As of press time, hospital management has not issued a public response, and no legal challenge has been announced. In the absence of a competing narrative, the city’s account dominates, but dominance does not equate to clarity.
The image of the "Heartless Mayor” with an angelic face now circulating among critics reflects more than political rhetoric.
It captures a perception that enforcement was prioritized over compassion, authority over transparency, and decisiveness over deliberation.
Whether that perception is fair or not may ultimately depend on what the city chooses to reveal next.
In matters involving public health, public land, and public livelihoods, secrecy only deepens suspicion.
Until the city opens its records and fully explains not just what went wrong but why it acted as it did, the closure of Ormoc’s oldest maternity hospital will stand as a troubling example of how swiftly lives can be upended when power is exercised without visible empathy or full public accountability.
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