By Edwin Fernandez/Philippine News Agency

COTABATO CITY — Health authorities in Maguindanao are expecting to serve more than 2,000 indigent patients from the province and nearby areas during a four-day medical-dental outreach program that would commence Tuesday, July 16, 2019.
Dubbed as “Gamutang Pangkalahatan,” the medical-dental mission will take place from July 16 to 19 at the Maguindanao provincial hospital in Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao.
Dr. Tahir Sulaik, chief of the Maguindanao Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO), said people from 36 municipalities of Maguindanao are eligible to avail of health services, including major surgical operations, for free.
Sulaik said this is the fourth year of the “Gamutang Pangkalahatan,” where more than a dozen government and private physicians converge at the provincial hospital to offer free health services to indigent patients.
“We also conduct mobile health services but major surgical operations are to be done at the hospital in Shariff Aguak,” Sulaik said in a phone interview here Monday.
Sulaik said the program aims to provide better health services to the province’s poorest of the poor in partnership with the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation. The health services also cater to patients from nearby provinces of Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato.
“We even have patients from South Cotabato and Lanao del Sur,” Sulaik said, adding that government health services recognize no boundaries.
IPHO services include major and minor surgical operations, blood donation, dental services, free checkup and distribution of free medicines, pregnancy kits, CT scan, ultrasound, X-ray services, and other related services.
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