ITOGON, Benguet – House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez recently gave some PhP5 million as financial assistance to the 12-bed Itogon dialysis center to help in providing maximum aid to kidney patients undergoing treatment in the said facility.
Mayor Bernard S. Waclin said that the financial assistance will be coursed through an accredited health facility which will in turn, enter into a memorandum of agreement with the Itogon dialysis center for the transfer of these funds to the end user to grant maximum benefits and assistance to the center’s kidney patients.
“We will continue to make the necessary representations with willing partners to sustain the assistance to our dialysis center so that patients will no longer be shelling out money from their pockets to defray the expenses for their treatment outside of the cost being shouldered by the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation and other charity groups,” Mayor Waclin stressed.
Further, he claimed that Rep. Eric Yap provided the center with financial assistance for the refreshments of the patients which he committed last year as an added privilege of those wanting to undergo dialysis treatment in the facility.
At present, there are some 30 kidney patients who are being treated in the center most of whom are undergoing dialysis treatment thrice a week.
Unfortunately, the municipal chief executive revealed that three patients being treated at the facility passed away despite the treatment they received.
Initial projections made by experts who prepared the feasibility study of the dialysis center showed that there should be at least 48 patients who will be regularly treated in the facility to ensure its sustainable operation although the current 30 patients are already sufficient in defraying the center’s cost of operations.
However, the mayor claimed that the municipal government continues to extend an open invitation to dialysis patients from the different barangays who are currently undergoing treatment in similar facilities in nearby Baguio City to patronize the established Itogon dialysis center for their convenience because of the facility’s proximity to their residences.
Barangays that have patients being treated in the dialysis center frequently provide transportation services for the patients to be fetched from their residence for their regular dialysis treatment and brought back to their homes after treatment for free while those patients from nearby barangays often opt to take the available public transport.
Some dialysis patients who were initially interviewed claimed that undergoing their dialysis treatment in facilities in Baguio is too taxing because they have to wake up early just to take the earliest trip to the city and line up in the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC) to wait for their schedules.
According to them, the operation of the Itogon dialysis center made their respective treatments less expensive and more convenient because they no longer wake up early but instead they will simply take the available public transport from their place to the facility or wait for the service of their barangays to bring them to the center and ferry them back to their residences without any undue hustle. By Dexter A. See
