Go aids nearly 2,000 patients

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Bong Go on Friday led the inauguration of a building that would house the Malasakit Center and other offices engaged in providing health assistance at the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) in Davao City.

The four-story building will house the offices of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, Philippine Health Insurance Corp., Botika ng Bayan and the Lingap para sa Mahirap Program, which all provide assistance to indigent residents.

During the event, Go’s team extended assistance to all patients and provided them with meals, food and medicine packs, reusable masks and face shields.

Patients and Malasakit Center personnel also received financial assistance from the DSWD as part of the ongoing efforts of the government to assist people displaced by the pandemic.

Go thanked the SPMC personnel led by hospital director Ricardo Audan and other local officials whose efforts made theconstruction of the new building possible.

Through this initiative, the government hopes to improve access to medical assistance for patients, who may now directly request aid from various government agencies without the need to travel to different offices in separate locations.

The OP and Lingap offices are opened open 24 hours a day while the rest during regular office hours.

The senator urged the patients to seek the services of the Malasakit Center, a one-stop shop that aims to reduce to the lowest amount possible the hospital bills of a poor patient including various services and expenses such as laboratory tests, medicine and surgery.

Go authored and sponsored the passage of a measure that eventually became Republic Act 11463 or the Malasakit Centers Act of 2019.

The measure, signed by the President in December 2019, brings together government agencies under one roof, where indigent patients may conveniently seek medical assistance.