Reorganization of Division of Tuberculosis in Department of Health

June 16, 1954

REPUBLIC ACT NO. 1136

AN ACT REORGANIZING THE DIVISION OF TUBERCULOSIS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

(SUPERSEDED BY EO 258, s. 1958)

SECTION 1. The Division of Tuberculosis in the Department of Health, hereinafter called the Division, is re-organized to include an administrative section with a statistical, motor and electrical maintenance, library, and buildings and grounds maintenance units; a section of clinics and therapy; a section of prevention and immunization with a BCG immunization and children's clinic, and health education and social service units; a section of X-ray operation and maintenance; and a section of TB laboratory and research.

The Division shall have a chief and an assistant chief who shall be appointed by the Secretary of Health and shall receive annual compensation at the rate of seven thousand two hundred pesos and six thousand pesos, respectively. It shall also have such technical, clerical and other personnel as may be determined by the Secretary of Health who shall appoint them and fix their compensation in accordance with law: Provided, however, That all the subordinate personnel of the present Division of Tuberculosis in the Department of Health shall continue in office with at least the same compensation.

SECTION 2. The Division shall have the following functions: cd i

(a) To coordinate, direct, and implement a well-balanced, comprehensive and intensive scheme of tuberculosis control services in the country, including prevention by direct (BCG immunization) and direct methods, diagnosis, treatment, social rehabilitation, public health training (for laymen and medical personnel), research, epidemiological and statistical studies, and national and international pooling of information;

(b) To establish and maintain at least thirty fully-equipped, fully-manned provincial TB centers within four years, complete with diagnostic laboratory, X-ray and treatment facilities (surgical and non-surgical), giving free services;

(c) To operate and supervise wards for TB patients in provincial hospitals where there are provincial TB centers;

(d) To establish and maintain at least thirty mobile X-ray units within four years in order to reach rural areas with no access to the chest center;

(e) To establish and maintain at least thirty mobile TB prevention units to undertake mass BCG immunization of susceptible children and young adults, intensive health education of the public by all possible means (loudspeaker attached to wagons, lectures, movies, leaflets,) home-visiting by home-visitors in rural areas, and gathering of epidemiological information on TB;

(f) To establish and maintain at least six village rest settlements, in strategic and suitable geographic areas in all the three principal regions of the Philippines, for patients with initial or convalescing tuberculosis who have no place in sanitaria or hospitals, and to facilitate their rehabilitation and replacement, as well as those of their families, into normal society by teaching them gainful occupations under proper medical control;

(g) To establish and maintain a National Tuberculosis Center to serve as the central headquarters for the direction of public health tuberculosis work throughout the country, to receive all reports, and statistical and epidemiological information, to serve as training center in tuberculosis for all categories of public health workers in the country;

(h) To pool all information on tuberculosis and exchange such information with other countries; and

(i)  To cooperate with all agencies, governmental and voluntary, in matters of general public health welfare.

SECTION 3. There is created the National Advisory Council on Tuberculosis to be composed of the Secretary of Health, as chairman, one representative each of the Department of Labor, Department of Education, and Social Welfare Administration, to be designated by their respective heads, a representative of the Philippine Tuberculosis Society, and a representative each of two civic organizations to be designated by the President of the Philippines. The chief of the Division of Tuberculosis shall be the executive-secretary of the National Advisory Council on Tuberculosis. The said Council shall give advice to the Division regarding the performance of its functions.

SECTION 4. The FOA-PHILCUSA and WHO-UNICEF-assisted TB and BCG units when they are ready to be turned over fully to the Government, all tuberculosis clinics supported by provincial or city agreements if the provinces and cities concerned agree, and all the TB public health activities of the Department of Health, Department of Education, and Social Welfare Administration are transferred to the Division of Tuberculosis as herein reorganized. The said Division is authorized and directed to receive, staff, and maintain any TB center or pavilion which the Philippine Tuberculosis Society may turn over voluntarily to the Division. aisa dc

SECTION 5. In lieu of the appropriations for the present Division of Tuberculosis in the Department of Health, there is appropriated, out of any funds in the National Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of two million five hundred thousand pesos, or so much thereof as may be necessary, to carry out the purposes of this Act for the fiscal year nineteen hundred fifty-five. The necessary sum for the operation of the Division in subsequent years shall be included in the General Appropriation Act. cd i

SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

Approved: June 16, 1954

Published in the Official Gazette, Vol. 50, No. 8, p. 3481 in August 1954