Since its relaunch on April 5, the Quezon City government has included an additional 4,920 senior citizens under its QC Senior Citizens Maintenance Medicine program.
Through the program, each senior citizen resident who needs maintenance medicine for hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol will receive medicines including Losartan (50mg/tab), Amlodipine (5mg/tab), Metformin (500mg/tab), and Simvastatin (20mg/tab) for free.
Since the implementation of the program through the passage of City Ordinance 2892, authored by Majority Leader Franz Pumaren, Councilor Donny Matias and Councilor Imee Rillo, in December 2019, the city has been providing monthly maintenance medicines to 40,000 QCitizens.
To cater to more elderly, the city government, through its district action offices and health centers, has also started to bring the program down to the barangays and communities to encourage more seniors to be recipients of the program.
“We always wanted to make our healthcare accessible to all residents, especially to our senior citizens. Gusto nating tanggalin na ‘yung problema buhat ng kawalan ng pera pambili ng gamot, at the same time, maiparamdam na aalagaan natin sila dito sa QC,” Mayor Joy Belmonte said.
“Tuluy-tuloy ang ginagawa nating caravan sa ating mga komunidad para mas marami pang lolo at lola ang makatanggap ng libreng gamot at iba pang serbisyong pang-senior citizen,” the mayor added.
For seniors who want to become part of the program, they should go to the nearest health center in their community from Mondays to Fridays, 8am to 5pm. They should present their QCitizen ID, or their Office of the Senior Citizen Affairs (OSCA) ID.
They will be assessed by the doctor and will be registered in the program. The physician will give them a prescription (if they don’t have any) and provide them with medicines.
Once registered, the elderlies can get their monthly supply of medicines every first Tuesday of the month, which is declared as the Senior Citizens Day in all the 65 health centers of the QC.
For patients who need medicines that are unavailable in the health centers, they will be referred to the Social Services Development Department for medical assistance. (PR)
