The Antique provincial board on Thursday passed a resolution requesting for a PHP13 million fund from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to purchase a multi-purpose vehicle to be used as a mobile clinic for coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) testing and other medical services.
“Antique recently had been identified as a high-risk area for Covid-19 as the province recorded local transmission of several variants, including the highly transmissible Delta Variant,” according to the resolution sponsored by Board Member Karmila Rose Dimamay said.
Addressed to Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado, the financial assistance when approved could benefit residents of 10 towns in the northern part of the province of Antique as medical facilities are mostly located in the province’s capital town of San Jose de Buenavista in the south.
The towns in the north include Patnongon, Barbaza, Bugasong, Caluya, Culasi, Laua-an, Libertad, Pandan, Sebaste, and Tibiao.
“Providing essential health services, particularly amid the pandemic is quite challenging as the distance of the farthest municipality from north to the capital town takes almost a day of land and sea travel,” Dimamay said.
The island municipality of Caluya, the farthest northern municipality of Antique province, is about 23.06 nautical miles from the port of the municipality of Libertad.
From the port, residents need to travel by land to San Jose de Buenavista, which is another 149.98 kilometers away, she said.
The difficulty to travel considering the distance makes it difficult for some residents to get medical attention as the province’s primary Covid-19 referral hospital, Angel Salazar Memorial General Hospital (ASMGH), is located in the capital town.
Antique’s stationery bio-molecular laboratory is also situated beside the ASMGH.
“There are residents in northern Antique, who although they show Covid-19 like signs and symptoms, had not been tested,” she said.
Dimamay said with the mobile clinic, people in northern Antique would then be able to access their needed health services. (PNA)
