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Maguindanao health program to benefit 10K patients

By Edwin Fernandez

August 29, 2018, 6:06 pm

COTABATO CITY -- Health officials in Maguindanao are expecting to serve more than 10,000 indigent patients during a four-day “Gamutang Pangkalahatan,” a medical-dental mission that started Tuesday.

Dr. Tahir Sulaik, Maguindanao health director, said people from 36 municipalities of Maguindanao are eligible to avail of health services, including major surgical operations, at the Maguindanao Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO) and at the Maguindanao provincial hospital situated in Shariff Aguak town.

Sulaik said this is the third year of the “Gamutang Pangkalahatan,” where more than a dozen government and private physicians converge at the provincial hospital to offer free health services to indigent patients.

“We also conduct mobile health services but major surgical operations are to be done at the hospital in Shariff Aguak,” Sulaik told reporters Wednesday.

Sulaik said the program, his brainchild, aims to provide better health services to the province’s poorest of the poor - in partnership with the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation. The health services also cater to patients from nearby provinces of Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato.

“We even have patients from South Cotabato and Lanao del Sur,” Sulaik said, adding that government health services recognize no boundaries.

The IPHO services include major and minor surgical operations, blood donation, dental services, free checkup and distribution of free medicine, pregnancy test, CT scan, ultrasound, X-ray services and many others.

The opening of the Aug. 28-31 outreach program was highlighted by the soft opening of the Hemodialysis Unit inside the Maguindanao provincial hospital. (PNA)

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