ON his natal day last week, October 27, Fourth District Rep. Christopher De Venecia presided over  the groundbreaking rite for a proposed Epidemiology Center for Disease Prevention and Control, and the inauguration of a modern building dedicated to COVID, including a newly built Oxygen Generation Plant  at the Region I Medical Center annex in Barangay Bonuan Binloc in Dagupan City.

Accompanied by his parents, former House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. and former Congresswoman Gina de Venecia, both instrumental in the steady growth of R1MC, they were welcomed by Dr. Joseph Roland Mejia, R1MC chief, and Department of Health Assistant Secretary Elmer Punzalan.

It was the young Congressman De Venecia  who secured the P20 million funding for the proposed two-storey epidemiology center. He said it would be remiss on his part not to mention the valuable help extended to him by Deputy Speaker Kristine Singson of Ilocos Sur and Speaker Lord Allan Velasco.

“This is a very exciting project, a trail blazing  ground to really augment the province’s as well as the region’s health care system,” said De Venecia in a program attended by Dagupan City Mayor Brian Lim, DOH Regional Director Valeriano Lopez and Dr. Eduardo Badua Jr., chief of the Ilocos Regional Training and Medical Center in La Union.

Dr. Mejia said the epidemiology center will monitor diseases other than COVID-19 and its equivalents, so these can be prevented and controlled before they spread to the communities and affect the general population.

He added the center, will serve as a future facility that will monitor other viral diseases in the region, underscoring the need to be proactive in disease prevention and control.

Mejia said that although the new building for COVID-19 patients and the Oxygen Generation Plant were both funded by the Department of Health, it was Congressman de Venecia who initiated the projects.

On the same occasion, De Venecia said he is also working on additional funding for the completion of the ongoing construction of a new seven-story building at R1MC’s main hospital on Arellano Street, in compliance with Republic Act No. 10614 authored by his mother, former Congresswoman Gina, that effectively raised  the bed capacity of the hospital from  300 to 600.

He said Health Secretary Francisco Duque III assured him that funding for the completion  of the structure is assured this year and  there will be multi-year funding for the project  thereafter till it is completed in 2024 or 2025.

“The bottom line is we don’t want to see any more patients being given medical care along the hallway or the parking lot of the hospital as what happened in many instances in the past,” De Venecia said. (Leonardo Micua)

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