SADANGA, Mountain Province – The Sadanga Lying-in Clinic will soon be opened to the public after provincial and municipal officials agreed to sit down and collaboratively look for ways to repair the building.
The 12-bed capacity structure was built in 2004 as a pet project of the board members Bonifacio Magalong and Francis Dangiwan. After its construction, it was turned over to the municipal government of Sadanga. Magalong was a former medical doctor who spent almost all his years at the Bontoc General Hospital while Dangiwan served as mayor of Sadanga before he made it to the provincial legislative body for two consecutive terms. He was the incumbent vice mayor when he died.
The health facility was originally conceived as birthing clinic and to serve children from the community. Later on, the responsibility of serving the health needs of the municipality of Tinglayan became an added function with the formation of the Bontoc- Sadanga-Tinglayan inter-local health zone. The formation of the health zone was a strategy inked by local leaders and the regional health office to speed up the delivery of health services to adjoining towns in the region.
The maintenance of the clinic became a problem due to the small share of Sadanga from the internal revenue allotment.
As a remedial measure, the late Rep. Maximo Dalog proposed a bill in 2010 to annex the clinic to the Luis Hora Regional Hospital in Abatan, Bauko so that financial support from the national government could be poured in but this has been overtaken with the death of Dalog.
In a meeting with officials and municipal officials last Thursday, governor Bonifacio Lacwasan, Jr. said that he will sit down with mayor Jose Linmayog to talk things out so that the clinic will be rehabilitated and serve its purpose. “I was one of the board members who signed the resolution and appropriating funding for the clinic. Of course, I will support it,” the governor said when requested for his comment regarding the utilization of the structure.
Limmayog, on the other hand, gave his all-out support.
By Angel B. Baybay
