Espino wants rural health units open to public 24/7
ALAMINOS CITY— Governor Amado Espino Jr. wants all Rural Health Units in Pangasinan to open 24 hours a day, seven days a week to be able to serve people, and the town and city mayors expressed their support for it.
Vice Governor Marlyn Primicias-Agabas told local newsmen that mayors are receptive to the idea when the provincial board, of which she is the presiding officer, held a consultation meeting on the issue recently.
In attendance during the meeting were the may ors of Anda, Bani, Alaminos City, Agno, Infanta, Dasol, Burgos, Mabini, Sual, Agno and Bolinao.
Agabas said Espino is set to propose that RHUs open 24 hours a day so that they can attend to patients who are too far away from district and provincial hospitals.
She said from the initial consultation, the mayors agreed to open their respective RHUs round-the-clock so they can admit even mothers delivering their babies who are in remote areas.
The RHUs can operate 24 hours a day even at their present manpower strength by rotating their personnel into three shifts, Agabas said.
Espino said that by opening RHUs for 24 hours, there is a big possibility that the overcrowding in government hospitals can be avoided.
The provincial government is subsidizing the operations of the provincial and district hospitals.
Agabas said the provincial board is also consulting municipal and city mayors on the plan to pass to their local governments the payment of sanitary inspectors, which the provincial government is currently shouldering.
The proposal is based on the tight financial situation of the provincial government and sanitary inspectors are really set up to serve at the city and municipal levels.
Agabas pointed out that there are municipal governments that can afford to handle the salaries of their respective sanitary inspectors.
At the same time, she said they do recognize that there are towns, especially those belonging to the fifth and sixth class categories that may not be able to afford the additional financial cost. — LM
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