AFP hospital provides medicine for wounded, sick soldiers

MANILA, Philippines - Sick and wounded soldiers are provided with medicine at the Armed Forces of the Philippines Medical Center, an official assured the public yesterday. 

“Gone are the days when soldiers used to buy medicine for themselves,” AFP spokesman Col. Arnulfo Burgos Jr. said in a statement.

 Burgos said the AFPMC also has newly refurbished wards and recently procured brand-new facilities for the convenience of its patients and its personnel.

Burgos said among the rehabilitation projects are the procurement of 266 television units, 235 refrigerators, 1,054 mattresses, 155 window type air-conditioning units, 124 orbit fans, CCTV cameras, bedside lamps and bar code scanners.

Burgos was reacting to a statement by Pangasinan Rep. Leopoldo Bataoil, who claimed that soldiers are forced to pay for their own treatment.

Bataoil, a retired police officer, said the reimbursement of hospital expenses of soldiers and their dependents has reached more than P60 million.

“The reimbursement suggests that soldiers have to shell out their own money for immediate treatment, hospitalization and medical care such that a soldier could be caught in a dreadful and merciless situation if one could not afford to advance the needed expenses,” he said.

The lawmaker also described as “deplorable” the state of the AFPMC’s facilities.

The AFPMC, Burgos said, renovated military wards and comfort rooms, repainted and installed new lighting facilities in its hallways, and constructed new nurses’ stations and pantry.