Murcia launches PuroKalusugan

Mayor Gerry Rojas, together with Department of Health – Negros Island Region OIC-Assistant Regional Director Adrian Hort Ramos, Negros Occidental Provincial Health Officer Dr. Girlie Pinongan, Murcia Rural Health Officer Dr. Raymund Antonio Maguad and Sangguniang Bayan Members, launched recently the PuroKalusugan at Brgy. Minoyan, Murcia.

PuroKalusugan is a flagship program of the DOH which aims to ensure the delivery of basic healthcare services directly to the grassroots level in the barangay zones or “purok”, giving priority to the 8-point agenda of the DOH under the BBM administration.

“Health has always been and will always be my top priority. With this DOH flagship program, we can further enhance the delivery of basic health services to Murciahanons, down to the purok level, so that people in the grassroots level can directly benefit from the health services from our government,” said Mayor Gerry Rojas.

Provincial Health Office and Murcia Rural Health Unit nurses, midwives and staff, Barangay Health Workers and volunteers offered free medical and dental services to hundreds of infants, children, adolescents, couples and senior citizens.
Among the services offered were immunization to infants and children, HPV vaccination for adolescents, pneumonia vaccination for senior citizens, hypertension and diabetes screening, HIV and TB services with free X-ray at the X-ray bus, dental services and cancer screening and counseling, family planning services, pre-natal services, nutrition services and road safety advocacy services.

About 50 patients availed of dental services from dentists and nurses of the PHO, while almost 400 patients availed of free medical consultation from Dr. Maguad and Dr. Aldwin Ivan Bandiola of the Doctors to the Barrios Program. The Murcia RHU provided free medications on upper respiratory infections and hypertension and diabetes maintenance medicine, among others.

The PhilHealth Local Health Insurance Office – Bacolod conducted a Universal Health Care (UHC) orientation, PhilHealth KonSulTa registration, and First Patient Encounter (FPE) for the personnel of the 303rd Infantry Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division of the Philippine Army.

Barangay officials and personnel from the Murcia Water District participated in the launch of the program, which was sponsored by Tanduay Distillers and Wilkinson Construction.

“PuroKalusugan is community-based, and promotes preventive healthcare. It is also comprehensive, because it includes screening, health education, management and referral, and it also caters to all sectors of society, from infants and pregnant women to senior citizens,” explained Kristine Araño, PuroKalusugan focal person for Murcia RHU.

“After this launching, we will bring the whole range of PuroKalusugan health services to other puroks. We have already prepared a schedule so that we can regularly conduct, fully integrate and further intensify the delivery of medical and dental services to other Murciahanons under the health priority program of Mayor Gerry Rojas,” Arano added.*