Central Luzon Doctors' Hospital

In the late 1950s a group of doctors realized the need for an alternative private health care provider in the province of Tarlac. By the early 1960s, these doctors decided that a new and modern hospital should provide better and more effective health care services and that they would built that hospital themselves. On February 2, 1962, the Central Luzon Doctors' Hospital, or CLDH for short, was formally established.

The original incorporators of CLDH are Drs. Constante D.Quirino, Fausto Pineda, Cesario Bondoc, Juan Talon, Benjamin S. Paz, Carlos Kipping Jr., Romualdo R. Aclao, Alfredo Carlos, Alberto David, Esteban E. Fabie Jr., Rodolfo de Guzman, Emiliano Magdangal, Benito M. Milla, Restituto de Ocampo, and Pablito Tanedo.

Forty-eight (48) years from CLDH's foundation day, only Drs. Paz, Bondoc, David and de Ocampo are left from the original group of fifteen who envisioned a modern health care institution for Tarlac City, the province and its surrounding communities. Of the three surviving incorporators, only Dr. Paz, now the Hospital's President, continues to practice his medical profession.

In April 4, 1964, the construction of the hospital's first building along Hospital Drive in San Vicente started with the laying of the corner stone. The then Secretary of Health Rodolfo T. Canos was the special guest. On Christmas day of the same year, the first surgical operation was performed at the then newly-constructed operating room of the fledgling hospital. In January 1965, the formal inauguration of the hospital was held with the then Tarlac Governor Ninoy Aquino as the guest speaker.

In 1976, CLDH embarked in general nursing education and established the CLDH School of Nursing, which was later renamed Central Luzon Doctors' Hospital Educational Institution. The school was built behind the hospital facing Romulo Highway. In 1979, the school produced its first nursing graduates. In 2004, the school campus was moved to San Pablo. Today, the school is offering undergraduate and graduate courses in Nursing, allied health services (Radiologic Technology, Medical Technology, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, Pulmonary Therapy, Midwifery, and Health Care Services) and basic education (pre-school, elementary and high school).

During the mid-1990s, when the original hospital buildings were no longer enough to accommodate the growing number of population and of patients seeking health care from the hospital, the construction of a new three-storey building complex was started. This new building shall house most of the health care service units, clinical wards, operating room, pharmacy, chapel and administrative offices. However, due of the effects of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, only two-phases from the original three-phase plan was completed. Nevertheless, the project gave the hospital wider space to serve the health care needs of the community as well as giving CLDH a new look.

In 1965, CLDH was a 25-bed capacity, primary hospital with less than a hundred employees and a capitalization of less than a million pesos. Today, the hospital is a 175-bed tertiary general hospital with a medical staff numbering more than 200, employees numbering about 700, and assets that have since multiplied more than a thousandfold since its incorporation in 1962.