SM Foundation launches Gamot Para Sa Kapwa 2009

MANILA, Philippines - In launching recently its Gamot Para Sa Kapwa 2009 program, SM Foundation also appealed to kind-hearted citizens to donate their spare but unexpired medicines and medical supplies so these can be used by those who need them most.

 SM Foundation launched the Gamot Para Sa Kapwa at the SM City North EDSA recently and put up booths to receive the medicine and medical supplies donations in all SM malls.

The launch was attended by officials of the Philippine National Red Cross and the Department of Social Welfare and Development, two invaluable partners of SM Foundation in the project. DSWD NCR Director Tessa Biolena, PNRC Secretary-General Gwendolyn Pang and Robert U. Sun, COO of Watson’s Personal Care Stores led the roster of guests.

The DSWD determines the beneficiaries of Gamot Para Sa Kapwa while the Philippine National Red Cross provides support during medical missions, giving emergency assistance in disaster-stricken areas. 

Gamot Para Sa Kapwa is an important component of SM Foundation’s health advocacy. SM Foundation considers health care and medical services as essential in building the human resources of the country because a healthy people makes up a healthy society, in education or as workers.

Sadly, health care and medical services are not the priorities of Filipinos belonging to the lowest income bracket. The lack of medical personnel in remote areas, the unavailability of health facilities and the prohibitive cost of health services has made health services inaccessible to the poor.

SM Foundation, through its intensified and regular medical missions that include dispensing of medicines, follow-ups of diagnostic cases when referred to hospitals and the acquisition of mobile clinics to dispense laboratory tests in remote areas where these clinics go to, is quietly addressing part of these healthcare problems.

Gamot Para Sa Kapwa 2009 has the support of pharmaceutical companies like Unilab Laboratories, GX International, Multicare Philippines, Glaxo Smith Kline Rx, Glaxo Smith Kline (Consumer Division), Boie Takeda Pharma, Pan Pharmaceutical, Collins international, Wyeth Consumer, Abbot Laboratories, International Pharmaceutical Inc., and Getz Bros. Pharma.

What started as a purely donation campaign for unused and expired medicines in 1998 has grown into an annual project that includes giving comprehensive medical and dental services to indigent families not only in areas located near SM malls but in remote and calamity-stricken areas.