METRO MANILA – The Philippine Red Cross announced that they will be halting its screenings funded by the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. after the agency were unable to settle the balances to the organization over P930 million balances.
Chairman Senator Richard Gordon said that the agency cannot afford to have almost a billion pesos in unpaid balances as they are still trying to replenish their stocks from China. The Red Cross recently acquired around 400 million test kits from China which cost about $6 million.
“We’ll have to halt the testing until we get some replenishment of funds.”
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said that it will be a big loss in the country if Red Cross indeed halt its operations, however he claimed that the country still has enough laboratories for the government to maintain the testing capacity in the country.
Roque added that the country would not be the highest actual PCR testing conducted if the government only relied to one laboratory.
Malacañang hope that the delay in payment will be fixed soon especially with the current issues directed at PhilHealth.
Roque said that it is a big loss if Red Cross stops its PhilHealth-funded tests. He apologized to the PRC on behalf of the Presidnt.
PhilHealth spokesperson Dr. Shirley Domingo confirmed that the agency has received ₱700 million bill from the Red Cross in the past few days but said that they were able to pay ₱504 million to the organization. The Philippine Red Cross has conducted over a million COVID-19 screening of the country’s more than three million test for the deadly virus.
