CEBU, Philippines — Cebu City Mayor-elect Edgardo Labella will continue giving free medicines to the city’s residents under the Long Life Medical Assistance Program (LLMAP).
However, Labella said he would review the program and ensure that health professionals will be the one to prescribe the medicines.
“On the matter of prescription, it should be prescribed by professionals,” he told The FREEMAN.
Labella considered the LLMAP, implemented by outgoing Mayor Tomas Osmeña, as a good program but it should be further reviewed and improved.
There are criminal and administrative cases pending before the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas in dispensing prescription medicines to the beneficiaries of LLMAP.
It was Barangay Apas Councilman Ramil Ayuman who sued Osmeña for employing out-of-school youth to dispense prescription medicines to the beneficiaries of LLMAP.
Ayuman said Osmeña could have used the existing barangay health workers who have undergone training programs before rendering primary health care services.
In the cases, Ayuman accused the mayor of committing graft, gross neglect of duty, and conduct unbecoming a public official.
Labella, for his part, said professionals should be granted authority to dispense these medicines.
“These professionals should be the one to make the prescription so that there will be no mistakes in the matter of prescribing medicines,” he said, adding that the people who distribute these medicines should be trained.
In 2016, Osmeña issued his first executive order on the LLMAP which intends to distribute free medicines for city’s residents who are suffering from hypertension, diabetes, and arthritis.
As of now, the city’s executive department has recorded over 50,000 beneficiaries every day who receive medicines.
Osmeña has been taking pride of the project, claiming that the City of Cebu is the only local government unit that is doing the project.
In the program, the medicines that are distributed include B. Complex, 50mg Losartan, 100mg Losartan Losartan HCTZ 50mg, Metorpolol 50 mg, Amlodipine 5mg, and Amlodipine 50mg, among others. — MBG (FREEMAN)