The Marcos administration has built more than 100 specialty centers for cardiac, cancer, stroke, trauma, burn, and brain care—all co-located inside existing hospitals rather than built as standalone facilities—expanding access to specialized medical care across the country without requiring the construction of new hospital buildings, Health Undersecretary Gloria Balboa said Saturday.
Balboa made the disclosure in an interview on DZRH News program Special on Saturday on August 22, as part of the DZRH SONA 2026 Series featuring the Department of Health (DOH) and PhilHealth.
The health undersecretary said the co-location model was chosen because building a new specialty hospital from scratch takes three to five years and requires its own emergency room, staff, and administrative infrastructure, while adding a specialty center to an existing hospital is faster and more cost-effective.
“More than 100+ na po nationwide yung mga specialty centers na naipatayo. Ito po yung mga para sa nabanggit ni Sec. Ed kanina, especially for cardiac, for brain, ang mga stroke, mga capacity for trauma, burn, even cancer, kasama na po ‘yun,” Balboa said.
Health Secretary Edwin Mercado said the model also addresses the health worker shortage, since an existing hospital already has nurses, an operating room, and emergency facilities that a new specialty center can share rather than duplicate.
He cited the example of the Bicol Medical Center, which will receive a cardiac catheterization laboratory to increase its capacity for heart attack treatment—an upgrade rather than a new facility.
Balboa acknowledged that the majority of the 100-plus specialty centers are currently in Luzon, reflecting the concentration of population and existing hospital infrastructure there, but said the DOH’s priority is to decentralize and bring specialty care to Visayas and Mindanao.
Mercado said the DOH is also building an inter-hospital referral network within each region so that specialty centers in one hospital can receive patients from other hospitals in the same region, preventing any single facility from being overwhelmed.
