Health authorities see less mother, child 

deaths with PhilHealth’s Z benefits pack 

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, January 5 (PIA)—Health authorities here look forward to better figures in maternal and child mortality rates as Bohol advances to its pegged marks in the millennium development goals when the Department of Health (DOH) and Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) opens its Z benefits package for preterm births or premature babies and pregnant women at risk of pre term delivery. 

Now piloted in Bohol at the Governor Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital (GCGMH), a DOH classified level 3, regional training hospital now led by among the country’s leading neonatists, the Z benefit package opens the now rebranded provincial and regional public hospital to pregnant women with potential childbirth problems, premature births and underweight infants the insured services of care, medications and drugs to professional care creditable to the PhilHealth. 

GCGMH used to be branded as inefficient and callous over its over population, lack of manpower and service burn-out is now rebranding itself under a new hospital chief into “so kind, so Gallares.” 

According to the PhilHealth, the Z Benefit Package is an insurance service being offered to PhilHealth members to address their health conditions that trigger prolonged hospitalization and very expensive treatments that a non-service often results to medically catastrophic situations due to the seriousness of the case. 

As PhilHealth started offering the Z benefits package, it opened its services to patient members or beneficiaries with acute lymphocytic leukemia, early stages of breast cancer, prostate cancer of low to intermediate risk, kidney transplantation for end stage kidney disease, coronary arterial bypass graft surgery, total correction of tetralogy of the fallot for children, closure of ventricular septal defect for children, cervical Cancer stage I to IV, the Z MORPH (Mobility, Orthosis, Rehabilitation and Prosthesis Help and this year, the Z benefits package for the premature and small newborns as well as to pregnant women with high risk of pre-term births and delivery issues like prevailing risk of pre-eclampsia. 

GCGMH Medical Director and the among the country’s first neonatists, Dr. Mutya Kismet Tirol-Macuno profusely thanked the PhilHealth for allowing the Bohol hospital to pilot the new Z benefit package, a favor she considers being a neonatal care expert herself. 

With the grand launching in Bohol, PhilHealth explained that its members with issues like pregnant women at risk of other birthing complications, premature and small newborns can now claim insurance credits for hospital room and board fees, drugs and laboratory exams, operating room fees, professional fees for the entire course of treatment – including mandatory and other services required per illness. 

And because only GCGMH yet is contracted by PhilHealth to implement the Z benefit package, patients from all over the region and even the country can only claim these benefits if they get confined at the contracted hospital, PhilHealth said. 

According to the DOH, the contents of the benefit package are consistent with the World Health Organization recommendation to adopt a life stage and continuity of care approach for mothers and children as reflected in the Department of Health Administrative Order 2008-0029. 

Under the new package, women who are at risk of giving birth at 24 weeks to less than 37 weeks of gestation may avail of PhilHealth benefit package ranging from P600 to P4,000 for the prevention of preterm delivery. 

The package also includes coverage for premature newborns of eligible members who are 24 to less than 32 weeks or 500 grams to less than 2,500 grams who are entitled to essential interventions with health insurance coverage ranging from P35,000 to P135,000. 

Moreover, preterm and small newborns who are 32 weeks to less than 37 weeks by fetal ageing are entitled to P24,000 to 71,000 worth of health insurance coverage from PhilHealth. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol) 

ZZZ BENEFITS. No, premature babies seldom get good sleep, in fact several use all the hours of their life sucking in air to acclimatize and adopt their frail lungs to the outside world after they were birthed way before their primes. Now, PhilHealth covers the care and hospitalization of newborns after they piloted the Z benefits package at GCGMH. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol) 

SO KIND SO GALLARES. GCGMH director Dr. Mutya Kismet Macuno receive the hospital proof of contracting PhilHealth’s Z benefits package for premature and small newborn, during a grand launching last month at the Belian Hotel. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)