Senator Christpher Lawrence ‘Bong’ Go is pushing for bigger government investments on health care to guarantee the health and welfare of Filipinos.
Go, who is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Demography, recently led the groundbreaking rites for the trauma center of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC), one of the health department’s apex hospitals in Northern Luzon. The trauma center is part of the regional specialty centers being pioneered by the health department that will form part of the multi-million Cancer Care Center in the said health facility.
The senator pointed out that the government should substantially increase its investment on health care to realize the establishment of the projected 17 regional specialty centers in strategic areas around the country to ensure that the health care needs of Filipinos will be given attention immediately unlike in the present set up where specialty health centers are located in the National Capital Region.
BGHMC is one of the apex hospitals in the country that is a recipient of multi-million state of the art health care equipment and facilities to be able to provide quality health care services to the people from the different parts of Northern and Central Luzon seeking medical attention from the said health facility.
The chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Demography assured that he will make sure that the prescribed budget for the establishment of the regional specialty centers in the different parts of the country will be provided in the national budget and will be subsequently implemented by the concerned agency to achieve the primary goal of improving the delivery of health care services to the Filipinos.
Senator Go was also the author of the law that mandated the establishment of Malasakit centers in various health facilities in the country to ensure that Filipinos needing assistance for their health needs will be immediately given attention right in the facility without going through the rigors of bureaucracy.
Senator Go underscored that lawmakers do not want that Filipinos will be again caught by surprise when another pandemic will prevail upon the people in various parts of the world similar to what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic where the world was caught by surprise.
He argued that the government should use the lessons that had been learned during the COVID-19 pandemic to aggressively improve the delivery of health care services to the Filipinos on the ground by heavily investing on the upgrading of various health facilities that will bring closer to the people quality health care services.
The establishment of the 17 regional specialty centers around the country is one of the priority programs of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. and Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri.
Go assured that he will closely look into the realization of the regional specialty centers in the different parts of the country to guarantee significantly improved health care services to the Filipinos in the future which will be a legacy that they will leave behind. By Dexter A. See
