BULUAN, Maguindanao – At least 1,200 indigent residents of three Maguindanao towns received medical and other health services from the provincial government during a medical mission last March 21-23.
Lynette Estandarte, Maguindanao budget officer and head of Maguindanao Peoples Medical Team (MPMT), said a total of 1,279 individuals are from the upland towns of North Upi, Barira and Buldon.
She said recipients from the remote villages of the three towns received medical and dental services from the provincial medical team as well as its partners – military physicians and nurses from the Army’s 6th Infantry Division.
Aside from medical and dental services, free medicines and vitamins were also given to the recipients who were grateful the provincial government reached out to them.
“We extended medical consultations, circumcision and even free haircut to children,” Estandarte said.
Estandarte said the medical team has been roaming around far flung communities to bring health services right at their doorstep as ordered by Maguindanao Governor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu.
“He cannot be here to serve you but he sent us to assist you on your health needs,” Estandarte told the recipients in the vernacular.
The 15-man Maguindanao people’s medical team is composed of a two lady physicians, four nurses and health assistants. It quickly responds to address the health needs of internally displaced families in Maguindanano where armed hostilities between Moro rebels and government forces send poor families out of their homes into evacuation centers.
Estandarte said highly communicable diseases normally spread in thickly populated and unsanitary environment “so that is the reason why we need to quickly respond on the first day of mass displacements in Magundanao.” (Edwin Fernandez/PNA)
