SC dismisses petition against Anti-Hospital Deposit Law

December 27, 2018

The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition questioning the legality of a law increasing penalties for owners of hospitals and clinics, and their physicians and personnel who “request, solicit, demand or accept deposit or advance payment as a prerequisite not only for confinement or medical treatment but also for administering basic emergency care.”

In a decision released  Dec. 18, Associate Justice Noel Tijam did not make a definitive declaration on the constitutionality of Republic Act No. 10932, known as the Anti-Hospital Deposit Law, which was signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte on Aug. 3, 2017.

But Tijam said RA 10932 “enjoys the presumption of constitutionality which the Court, at the first instance, cannot disturb in the absence of a prima facie showing of grave abuse of discretion and, upon delving into the merits, in the absence of a clearest showing that there was indeed an infraction of the Constitution.”

“If the Court were to invalidate the questioned law on the basis of conjectures and suppositions, then it would be unduly treading questions of policy and wisdom not only of the legislature that passed it, but also of the executive which approved it,” the high court stressed.

The ruling came after the SC dismissed the petition filed by the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines, Inc. (PHAPi) on technical grounds, particularly for lack of legal standing of the association to file the petition.

On April 4, 2018, the Department of Health (DOH) issued Administrative Order No. 2018-0012 that implements RA 10932.

RA 10932 also expanded the scope of “basic emergency care” to include “medical procedures and treatment administered to a woman in active labor.”

The law mandates the local government unit where the hospital or medical clinic is located “to allow free use of its emergency medical vehicle” if a transfer to another hospital of a patient is deemed necessary.

The law also imposes on violators – hospital owners, medical practitioners, employees – “the penalty of imprisonment of not less than six (6) months and one (1) day but not more than two (2) years and four (4) months, or a fine of not less than Pl00,000.00, but not more than P300,000.00, or both at the court's discretion.”

The law also introduced “the three-strike rule, or when upon three repeated violations committed pursuant -to an established policy or upon instruction of the management, the health facility's license to operate shall be revoked by the Department of Health (DOH).”

It holds “the president, chairman, board of directors, or trustees and other officers of the health facility solidarily liable for damages.” DMS