DoH breaks ground for first Bucas project
THE Department of Health (DoH) led the inauguration of the country’s first urgent care, ambulatory service facility in Sto. Tomas, Pampanga, where medical services will be made available to the poorest Filipinos.
Jose B. Lingad Memorial General Hospital (JBLMGH) will be the first home of the Ambulatory and Multi-Specialty Center (JASMC) with Bagong Urgent Care and Ambulatory Service (Bucas) project of the department.
The facility and its services will serve the urgent medical needs of the residents of Pampanga and its surrounding provinces, with the goal of giving people from all walks of life equal access to health care in line with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s Bagong Pilipinas agenda.
Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa cited that the aim is to realize “28-28-28” or to build 28 Bucas centers for the 28 million poorest Filipinos by the end of the President’s term in 2028.
“Through the Bucas, PBBM asked me to make the people feel health care. This is the concretization of the Bagong Pilipinas call. I hope that this will come true in other regions in the Philippines because we are now seeing the Bagong Pilipinas,” he said.
The center will aid DoH in its vaccination campaign, offering vaccines for measles and oral polio for children, for human papillomavirus for adolescents and for pneumococcal and flu for adults.
It also seeks to ensure the health of children in their first 1,000 days to avoid malnutrition, undernutrition and stunting among Filipino kids and maternal health care to bring down maternal mortality through the improvement of birthing centers and midwives. It has an obstetrics and gynecology department for prenatal care.
Aside from this, Bucas will assist DoH in combating tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus with readily available medicines until completion of treatment.
It will also push for road safety as 70 percent of deaths are coming from young adults who are having accidents while riding motorcycles.
The facility will try to control the rising cases of hypertension among Filipinos by monitoring blood pressure of patients as well as push for a public health approach to diabetes and childhood obesity.
Likewise, the Bucas facility will ensure the early detection of cancers. It will diagnose and operate breast cancer patients and provide colonoscopy and endoscopy to detect colon cancer.
The use of digital technology for health care using telemedicine will also be promoted to help people access care in the comfort and privacy of their homes.
The JASMC with Bucas facility in Sto. Tomas, the country’s “Casket Capital,” stands on about 5,000 square meters of land in Barangay San Vicente donated by the municipal government to JBLMGH with an additional 2 hectares for future expansion.
Mayor John Sambo emphasized that although they are the smallest town in Pampanga, the municipal government will continue to work for their dream of providing the health care needs of its constituents, particularly the indigents.
“This moment started with a beautiful dream, it became a journey, now a destiny and a reality. A reality that this facility will be used not only by the people of Sto. Tomas, but also of those in our nearby towns,” he said.