The Regional Office of the Department of Health (DOH-7) launched Bohol’s much-awaited health program in Ubay.

On tuesday morning, Gov. Chatto joined DOH-7 officials and Ubay municipal officials led by Mayor Galicano Atup and Vice-Mayor Nelson Uy in the kick-off ceremonies of the Department’s High Impact Caravan and Turn-over Ceremony for Universal Health Care (UHC), part of DOH’s Medical Assistance Program (MAP).

Gracing the event were DOH USEC Dr. Vicente Belizario, Jr., DOH Regional Director Dr. Jaime Bernadas, Dr. Elizabeth Caluag of the Disease Prevention and Control Bureau, and other Health officials.

“Health care,” said the governor, “being integral and universal, is one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the world’s time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty.”

Kalusugan Pangkalahatan or UHC is the current thrust of the Aquino administration in order to bridge the gap and reduce barriers to health care, reduce social exclusion, and works towards universal coverage of delivering health services to Filipinos.

To attain these goals, DOH launched the High Impact Five (Hi-5) last May 2015, which focuses on maternal health, infant care, child care, HIV/Aids prevention and cure, and service delivery network.

These five areas, as USEC Belizario put it, “are the most important and most basic of health services which the Filipinos need to focus on, keep track of, and address, to ensure healthy individuals, healthy lifestyles, and healthy communities.”

This strategy aims to produce the greatest improvement in health outcomes.

In the middle of 2015, the DOH, together with the Delegation of the European Union to the Philippines (EU), commenced a National Health Summit with the theme, “Universal Health Care: Making Local Health Service Delivery Work.”

The summit aimed to capture, share, and scale-up local health practices and interventions proven effective in increasing access to quality mother and child health care neonatal services.

“Mararamdaman, mararanasan, at makakarating sa lahat ang Kalusugan Pangkalahatan,” Health Sec. Janette P. Loreto-Garin said during its launching in June 2015 in forty-three (43) priority provinces in the country.

The program’s success relies heavily not only with DOH but more importantly, on the support and actions of attached government agencies, its partners, the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), non-government organizations (NGOs), developmental partners and the local government units (LGUs).

The EU and the Philippines signed the Philippine Health Sector Reform Contract (PHSRC) in July 2014, the third EU-funded program to support the Philippine Health Sector Reform Agenda.

Under this agreement, EU provides a P1.8B grant to generally support the Philippine Government initiatives in developing the country’s health sector.

Mayor Atup informed the Ubayanons of the Provincial Government’s generosity by pouring in different kinds of assistance to their beloved hometown, emotionally thanking the governor for helping Ubay through thick and thin, especially the bringing in of the famous HEAT IT Bohol Caravan to their town last year.

He also thanked Gov. Chatto for the town’s second RHU building which is now being constructed  in barangay San Pascual; prompting the local leadership to plan for its third one in barangay Biabas.

To this, Gov. Chatto said that he resolutely believes that programs should be brought closer to, and should be well understood by, the people, so that they could be easily accessed by them.

With all these strategies laid out for the different priority programs, Sec. Garin urges everyone to “just have to improve coordination, eliminate duplication of activities and enhance complementation of assistance in order to guarantee our success.” (JLV/PGBh/EDCom)