LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – Benguet Caretaker Congressman and Anti-Crime and Terrorism through Community Involvement and Support (ACT-CIS) Party-list Rep. Eric Yap disclosed that he will be using his personal resource to procure some 600 doses of Astra Zenica vaccines that will be used to vaccinate frontliners of the Benguet General Hospital (BeGH) and members of the media as part of the initial wave of the implementation of the government’s mass vaccination in the province.
Yap, who chairs the powerful House Committee on Appropriations, stated that he already got the assurance from Vaccine Czar Carlito Galvez, Jr. that Benguet will be among the priority areas where the mass vaccination will be rolled out on or before the middle part of the year to ensure that the people in the province will not be left out simply because of the inadequate resources of the different local governments.
However, he pointed out that he also made representations with the National Vaccine Committee to include the procurement of some 600 doses of the vaccine that will be charged to his personal account so that the BeGH frontliners and the members of the media who are always risking their lives in trying to ensure the health and safety of the populace will be immunized at the earliest possible time.
For other frontliners and health workers from the different parts of the province, the lawmaker claimed that the vaccines for them will be worked out by his office for them to be provided with such similar immunization like those from the BeGH because of the risk involvement in their work.
According to him, he will also try to shell out whatever personal resources that he could spare just to ensure that the frontiners will be vaccinated to help in achieving the desired herd immunity among the populace.
He assured the people of Benguet that he will closely work with the National Vaccine Committee to fulfill its earlier commitment to him that the province will be placed as one of the priority areas for vaccination simultaneous with the projected roll out of the mass vaccination program in the different parts of the country.
Yap joined Gov. Melchor Diclas, Mayor Romeo Salda and boardmembers Nestor Fogwan, Jr. and Robert Namoro during the recent inauguration of the 16-bed isolation unit that was constructed by the public works department within the compound of the BeGH.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) provided the required funds for the constriction of 3 isolation units in the different parts of the province where the one within the BeGH compound was the first to be completed while the other facility in Itogon will be undergoing construction the soonest.
The 13 million isolation unit within the BeGH compound is a one-storey structure made from container vans with independent comfort rooms for each of the rooms that had been provided for COVID patients pursuant to the advise of health authorities tasked to oversee their health condition.
By HENT
