BAGUIO CITY – Quality health care services will soon be available in rural areas around the Cordillera with the projected completion of some five super health centers in strategic areas in the region to add up to the seven similar structures that were already completed.
Engr. Arianne Joy Dy, in charge of the Cordillera office of the Department of Health’s Health Facilities Enhancement Program, said that the five super health centers will be built this year in La Trinidad and Atok in Benguet and Sabangan, Sadanga and Besao in Mountain Province.
Earlier, some seven super health centers have already been completed by the health department in the different parts of the region, particularly in Tayum, Abra; Flora, Apayao; Atok, Benguet; Lagawe, Ifugao; Tabuk City, Kalinga and Barlig and Natonin, Mountain Province.
Dy described the super health centers to be a medium version of a polyclinic and a larger version of a rural health unit that is equipped with x-ray, laboratory, birthing, among others capable of providing quality primary health care services to the populace.
The DOH-CAR official noted that last year, some PhP240 million had been earmarked for the construction, repair and improvement of various health facilities, procurement of equipment and provision of ambulances to local governments in the different parts of the region.
According to her, some 225 local government health facilities were completed, 60 procured equipment were delivered to the designated health centers and two ambulances were delivered to the recipient local governments with the use of the provided funds.
Aside from the construction of the five super health centers, she disclosed that there will be some 61 infrastructure projects related to health facilities and procurement of equipment as well as the acquisition of three ambulances for local governments in Benguet and Mountain Province that are programmed for this year.
The put up of super health centers in strategic areas in the country is one of the major thrusts of the present administration to allow people to have easier access to quality health care services so that they will not contribute to the congestion in tertiary hospitals that are situated in urban centers.
The health department is encouraging barangay and municipal officials and health workers to inform and educate their constituents to patronize the services of the completed super health centers in their places because the same had already been equipped and provided with personnel that are capable of providing quality health care services for them to be provided with the appropriate diagnosis and treatment for their health condition.
The health facilities enhancement program is geared towards providing the needed assistance for the construction, rehabilitation and improvement of local government health facilities such as rural health units, procurement of the appropriate units of equipment and the purchase of vehicles, particularly ambulances that will be given out to qualified local governments with the purpose of improving the delivery of health care services to the people in the countryside.
The accomplishments of the DOH-CAR were featured in the Kapihan sa Bagong Pilipinas to inform the people on the agency’s contributions in the efforts to deliver quality health care services on the ground. By Dexter A. See
