BONTOC, Mountain Province – Mayor-elect Jerome Tudlong, Jr. assured residents of the town’s various barangays that one of the major priorities of the next set of municipal officials is the upgrading and equipping of barangay health stations for to conform to the pertinent provisions of the Universal Health Care Act.
Tudlong, who is assuming the town’s mayoralty post by noon of June 30, 2022, stated that his administration will focus in bringing quality health care services nearer to the people by ensuring the upgrading and equipping of the various barangay health stations so that health workers can immediately attend to the simple medical needs of residents wanting to seek assistance from these facilities.
He admitted there are many barangays in the municipality that are distant from the Bontoc General Hospital and the easiest way by which they could avail of health care services is for them to approach the nearest barangay health stations in their respective barangays for their health situation to be assessed before being referred to higher-level health care facilities.
The incoming mayor claimed that aside from improving the current infrastructure of the barangay health stations, the municipal government needs to provide these facilities with adequate first aid equipment and medicines, especially hypertensive drugs that can be immediately disposed, to prevent the health of residents from progressing into more serious illnesses.
According to him, the municipal government needs to invest in the upgrading and equipping of barangay health stations so that the effective and efficient delivery of health care services will not be jeopardized as health is one of the key factors in sustaining the productivity of people, especially in the present situation where the world is recovering from the heavy impact of the ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
Tudlong committed he will closely coordinate with concerned government agencies and the private sector to ensure the realization of the proposed upgrading and equipping of the various barangay health stations so that people in the remoter communities will have better access to quality health care services and medicines.
He asserted that by providing the barangay health stations with a stable supply of medicines and other important medical supplies, residents needing these need not travel to the town center for their healthcare needs.
Tudlong also claimed it is important to equip the barangay health stations to help decongest the only government hospital operating in the municipality and ensure that senior citizens and persons with disabilities needing such medicines and medical supplies have easy access to such needs.
