The programs of health services in the Province of Bohol were first introduced by the Department of Health in the middle part of 1959 thru the Maternal Child Health Care Program. With this program, tha main thrust was the Expanded Program on Immunization and Tuberculosis Program as this was high incidence this years. The Ministry of helth thru the Regional Health Office funded the salaries of the manpower who were hired to implement the program.

In the early part of 1960’s, the Provincial Government hired personnel to supplement the manpower from the region thus creating the Provincial Health Office. Among the hired personnel were Sanitary Inspectors, Medical Technologist, Dentists, Dental Aide and the Administrative Support staff. In 1978, with the shift of parliamentary form of Goverment, the Department of Health was transformed into Ministry of Health. Majority of the personnel were paid by the National Government including the Provincial Health Officer, and all other Health Workers in the Municipalities such as Municipal Health Officers, Public Health Nurses, Public Health Midwives, Medical Technologist, Dentists, Dental Aides and Rural Inspectors.

Those “Organic Personnel” get their salaries from the Provincial Government while the payroll of the national paid personnel were prepared at the Provincial Health Office and brought to the province for distribution. With this arrangement, a utility aide was hired by the Regional Health Office to do this task every month. Field  health personnel were granted travelling allowance with a maximum ceiling of P200.00 during that time. Likewise, processing of their claims were also done at the Regional Health Office – Cebu City.

It was in 1980 that the Ministry of Health planned to changed the system from centralization to decentralization where the integration of health services was introduced. This was finally implemented in 1983. It was these scheme that the allotment for the 7 District Hospitals namely:  Garcia Memorial Provincial Hospital, Catigbian District Hospital, Loon District Hospital, Jagna District Hospital, Cong. Simeon Toribio Memorial Hospital, Francisco Dagohoy Municipal Hospital and Pres. Carlos P. Garcia Municipal Hospital were sub alloted directly to the Integrated Provincial Health Office from the DOH-Central Office(MIa) and Regional Health Office – Cebu and the IPHO released the funds to them.

With this scheme,  the name Provincial Health Office was change to Integrated Provincial Health Office, and that the site of the Provincial Hospital, which was in Talibon shall become the site of the office. Likewise, the Provincial Health Officer shall automatically becomes the Chief of Hospital. In as much as there was already a chief of Hospital at GMPH, the PHO only monitors and visits the hospital regularly. However, this posed a problem because the hospital was quite far from the City where all financial transactions were done.

So,  in order to comply with  the order, the IPHO sent four of their staff(4) work at the Hospital to represent the IPHO and one(1) from Loon District Hospital to act as the accountant. All financial transactions were done and processed at the IPHO Talibon and reconciliation with all accounts were done on a quarterly basis at the Regional level and at the DOH Central Office at the end of the year. It was during this time that the Medicare Hospitals were merged and absorbed by the DOH. In Bohol, there were three medicare hospitals namely, Maribojoc Medicare Hospital, Candijay Medicare Hospital and Clarin Medicare Hospital. Allotments for these hospitals were sub alloted to the IPHO and the IPHO  will release to them the funds. It maybe noted that each hospitals, including the IPHO prepared individual trial balances and othe financial documents every month, each had its own resident COA auditors. It was in 1987 that the Department of Health was created from the previous MInistry of Health.