Mayor: Giving of free medicines to impact other programs of city

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña has defended his new program that gives free medicines to residents of the city everyday, after the opposition-dominated City Council questioned the hiring of 600 job order employees to deliver the medicines.

In his press conference yesterday, Osmeña said the “Long Life Medical Assistance” program may sound simplistic but it would have a positive impact on other social services of the city.

During the budget hearing yesterday, the City Council questioned the city’s Department of Social Welfare and Services’ proposed P85 million for the medical assistance program, which includes P21 million for the hiring of 600 job order workers.

“What we’re really doing is that we are trying to implement the best healthcare system in the world. There’s no place where they are doing this. And the majority (of the city) council, out of political jealousy, (says) ‘No no no, we have BHWs (barangay health workers)’. I’m just trying to explain to the people of Cebu that this is what we are doing for you,” Osmeña told reporters.

The mayor said one positive impact of this program is that the city government would be assisting out-of-school-youths to have earnings each day.

Osmeña said the 600 job orders are out-of-school-youths and will be given P100 per day. One job order worker is asked to deliver the maintenance medicines of 50 patients a day.

“It may sound simple but they can’t do this in the United States even though they’re very rich. Even Japan and Australia. You know why? Because we are using out of-school-youth and we are paying (each) P100 to deliver medicine to 50 people so the delivery cost is only P2 per person per day,” he said.

As of October 31, the mayor said, at least 23,400 patients have received free medicines already.

Long Life Medical Assistance program operation head Peter Neil Visitacion expressed gratitude to the Department of Health-7 for providing 5,000 medicines per month.

Visitacion said the program started last July and the city tapped DOH to implement the giving of free medicines to residents.

As of now, he said, there are 450 job order workers who are getting salary under the DSWS account.

“I just hope that the council will approve our proposed P85-million budget, which includes the P21 million for the salary of 600 job orders. Ang the rest sa P85 million is for the medicines and other supplies,” Visitacion said.

He denied politicking in the selection of beneficiaries of the free medicines.

As of now, Visitacion said, the available maintenance medicines are only for those suffering from hypertension, diabetes, and arthritis.

“Makalipay kaayo makakita nga inig hatag nato sa mga tambal, dili ka makatuo nga manghilak sila kay maka-feel sila nga gipangga na sila karon sa gobyerno,” he said.

Visitacion said that with the P85 million, they are targeting to give free medicines to 30,000 people in 2017.

“We are proposing a budget of P85 million for the year. If we will compute that on a per person basis, it will only cost P3,200 per year per patient, on the 30,000 target,” he said.

Osmeña said the city does not require the patient to undergo the bureaucratic process of the government before getting their medicines everyday.

He anticipated, though, that Team Rama-allied city councilors would block the proposed budget because the program would allegedly make them lose in the next elections.

He said that in coming up with the program, he simply wanted the people to know that there’s government that is willing to extend its help to the “poorest of the poor.”

On the concern of City Councilor Raymond Garcia that BHWs should have been tapped instead of hiring new people, the mayor said that unlike BHWs, the city would be paying only P100 a day for each person.

He said there are three reasons why a patient doesn’t take daily maintenance medicine — lack of money, distance to the nearest pharmacy, and forgetfulness.

City Councilor Jocelyn Pesquera suggested to give the free medicines in bulk every 15th day of the month, but the mayor said that if this is adopted the beneficiaries would end up selling their free medicines.

“Many of them will just end up selling the medicines because they need the money. It’s very hard to sell one or two tablets for their daily dose so we’re giving it to them every day. Our thrust is all of our patients…, even though they’re poor, they get their daily dose,” he said.  (FREEMAN)