MBTF SEEKS FREE MEDICINES FOR ALL INDIGENTS

DAGUPAN CITY – Indigent families here are set to avail of the expanded primary care package of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) in which medicines and drugs for selected medical conditions may be provided by PhilHealth-accredited drug outlets in the city.

The program is called Tsekup – Tamang Serbisyo sa Kalusugan ng Pamilya.

Mayor Belen T. Fernandez and City Health Officer Dr. Leonard Carbonell already made an initial negotiation with PhilHealth for it to make St. Joseph Drugstore as the first PhilHealth-accredited drug outlet in the city.

“This is another first in our city as we are the first Local Government Unit in the country through the initiative of Mayor Belen to avail of the services of the program by talking with St. Joseph Drugstore to be accredited by PhilHealth,” said Carbonell.

In giving the best medical care the government can offer to the city’s indigents, Mayor Belen recently signed a Memorandum of Agreement with Dagupan Doctors Villaflor Memorial Hospital (DDVMH) for the implementation of the “No Billing Policy” and “Point of Care” program.

DDVMH is the first private hospital in the country to be accredited by Philhealth for the implementation of the program which is usually between PhilHealth and a government hospital.

Carbonell said that with the implementation of Tsekup, around 60,000 potential beneficiaries will benefit from the medicines and drugs especially on the following medical conditions like asthma, acute gastroenteritis, upper respiratory tract infection, pneumonia, urinary tract infection, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, dyslipidemia, deworming and schemic heart disease.

First to benefit from this program are the sponsored members enrolled by the national government under the National Housing Targeting System and the locally sponsored indigent members enrolled by the city.

“For a patient to avail of the program from an accredited drugstore, they have to seek medical prescription first from us at the city health office especially those 15,000 PhilHealth beneficiaries in our city,” said Carbonell. (Joseph C. Bacani/CIO/June 25, 2015)