Negros Occidental Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. and his counterpart in the Oriental side, Governor Roel Degamo, renewed their commitment to give health services delivery top priority under their administrations, a press release from the Capitol said yesterday.

Both governors joined the 18th anniversary on Monday of the Inapoy Community Primary Hospital located in the village bordering Mabinay town in Negros Oriental and Kabankalan City, serving 12 hinterland barangays that used to have difficulty accessing health care services.

The ICPH, established on March 9, 1997 by then Gov. Rafael Coscolluela and the late Gov. Emilio Macias II, was the first collaborative endeavour between the two provinces since discussions on the one island region concept began in May 1994. A second health facility being co-managed by both Occidental and Oriental was later built in Luz-Sikatuna to cater to Isabela and Guihulngan City indigents residing in upland communities.

Dr. Ernell Tumimbang, Provincial Health Office chief, said  the barangay-based hospital in Inapoy started with about 12 personnel, including one doctor, running the five-bed capacity health facility. It expanded to 10 beds and today, it has a 25-bed capacity with about 20 staff members.

But Marañon, in his message, said the ICPH is currently facing the lack of doctors interested to serve the community, prompting him to call on Degamo to help find medical practitioners because no one has responded yet despite the advertisements made by Capitol.

He also rallied the community to help look for doctors as well.

"I know that one of your biggest problems here is the lack of doctors.  So I would like to appeal to you to help us look for doctors.  We’ve been advertising, looking for medical doctors to be assigned here, but sad to say, nobody volunteered or accepted the assignment.  So, I would also like to ask your governor," Marañon said.

 He also commended the barangay folk and village officials for their involvement to ensure the smooth operations of the hospital.

With the additional building, transforming the hospital into a  25-bed capacity facility, health services to the community will certainly improve, Marañon said. In the province of Negros Occidental, with the help of its board members, the biggest budget  allocated is for health needs, he added.

“This is because we believe that if we are healthy, even if we are financially-challenged at times, we are able to fight and surpass challenges,” the governor said.

He also tapped the support of Degamo in efforts to seek further help from the Department of Health to complete existing projects for the ICPH.

Degamo told Marañon that the DOH had already allocated P3 million to complete the construction of an additional building, which is expected to start within the year.

“I am happy that Gov. Marañon is here, because we lack doctors, so I said I will look for a doctor whom he will pay because that is part of our agreement before. Let us help look for doctors here. It’s hard to look for doctors to be assigned in the hinterlands,” Degamo said.

Under the agreement between Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental on the ICPH operations, the former will provide the bulk of  personnel complement and operating expense, while the latter answers for building and fixtures, including the lot, and the social preparations.*

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