Bacolod City officially launched its Universal Health Care (UHC) City Wide Health System, which will ensure quality and affordable health care for all, with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Health (DOH) and Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) on Monday, Dec. 4.
Bacolod Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez, who led the signing of the MOU at the Bacolod City Government Center lobby, said PhilHealth is allocating P330 million for its KonSulta Program in Bacolod City in 2024 designed to provide preventive health care for Bacolodnons.
The funds to be allocated under the UHC will form part of the Special Health Fund for Bacolod, he said.
“I can assure you that our community will truly feel the impact of the program we are bringing to them,” Benitez said.
Dr. Mary Pauline Gestosani, chief of DOH-6 Regulations, Licensing, and Enforcement Division, and Edgar Yocariza, head of PhilHealth-Bacolod, also signed the MOU.
Yocariza said the Universal Health Care Act provides an assurance that all Filipinos shall be granted immediate eligibility and access to preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative health care services.
UHC provides automatic inclusion of every Filipino into the program, he said.
The PhilHealth Konsulta Package is the flagship program of the UHC which aims to provide comprehensive outpatient benefits, including outpatient drug benefit and emergency services, he said.
The PhilHealth Konsulta Package covers three major benefits: free medical consultations; 21 drugs and medicines for common colds, coughs, pneumonia, diarrhea, urinary tract infection and hypertension; and 13 Laboratory Tests like CBC, urinalysis, fecalysis, sputum microscopy, FBS, ECG, and Chest X ray among others, Yocariza said.
The Bacolod City Health Office is the first accredited PhilHealth Konsulta Package Provider under the Local Health Insurance Office Bacolod catchment area and also the first LGU to be the UHC implementation site in the province of Negros Occidental, he said.
Gestosani said the DOH will provide support, guidance and resources for the UHC program in Bacolod.
“UHC recognizes the importance of preventive health when it demands the strengthening of community health. Public health is preventive health,” Dr. Ava Joy Infante also stressed.*