DR. JAIME ‘DOK JIMMY’ GALVEZ TAN Chairman of the Board PRIMARY CARE PLUS, INC.

Dr. JAIME “Jimmy” GALVEZ TAN, chairman of the Board of Primary Care Plus, is considered by many as “the personification of public health and community development in the Philippines”.

Known as Dok Jimmy to most, he always lived in the mantra: “Country First, Self Later” — a value that sets him apart from many of his peers. His services to the community and institutions for learning, along with the organizations he founded (trailblazing projects like the Alay sa Ginhawa at Kalusugan), have contributed to become exponents of social progress.

It was a trip to the island province of Palawan, the summer of 1968, that changed Dr. Galvez-Tan’s life — a memorable sojourn that served as an eye-opener, a looking glass that showed him the disconsolate state of the rural countryside where images of destitution and disease cascaded without intervention.

Dok Jimmy is a living witness of how healthcare should be delivered especially to the poor.

Primary Care Plus Inc., (PCPI), previously Clinic ng Bayan, was established in 2014 to provide a one-stop shop clinic that offers quality primary healthcare, specialty and ancillary care that includes comprehensive diagnostic, laboratory, pharmacy and consultation services to the low income earners at very affordable prices.

It is committed to promote healthy lifestyle, early diagnosis of disease and prevention from sickness by providing highly professional and efficient delivery of health care that is accessible, acceptable, affordable, and appropriate to the communities that it serves.

PCPI is the health solutions provider unit of TAO Corporation, which has more than 35 subsidiaries. It serves as its corporate social responsibility.

“We choose to be near the poor and normal wage earners,” says Dok Jimmy.

But what differentiates PCPI from any other privately-owned clinics in the country is cost.

“The main difference is the cost, we are the lowest price in the country in terms of the quality of care,” says Dok Jimmy.

Consultation fee is only R250 while the specialist is only R500 to R600 as against R800 to R1,000 in other clinics.

“PCPI is a 5-star clinic with a 1-star price,” boasts Dok Jimmy. It is conveniently located in Diamond Arcade near the north exit of LRT 2, Cubao station.

PCPI is alone in this category. It has first rate facility, clean and excellent staff comprising of 25 doctors, including Dok Jimmy.

PCPI’s vision is to cater largely to the C and D markets, which do not have social security. The C patients are those with regular jobs like the motorcycle and jeepney drivers while the D are the day to day contract workers. These are the market vendors, street vendors and those working in beauty parlors. They do not have the luxury of doctor loyalty that the A B and upper C markets have.

“The A B and upper C are those who go to the Medical City, St. Luke’s and Makati Medical City,” says Dok Jimmy.

“The AB do not go to Cubao to consult a doctor and if they do perhaps because they are loyal to a particular doctor who does clinic in Cubao,” observes Dok Jimmy.

“We offer all the basic laboratory services, x-rays, ultra sound, from family adult and pediatric, obstetrics, and integrative medicine,” adds Dok Jimmy.

“Even as we concentrate in the low income segment, corporations are liking the PCPI services and we have some corporations on board,” he adds.

But PCPI is not an ordinary clinic. It is unique on its own. It could be the first and only clinic in the country that offers a holistic approach to healing by integrating all forms of medical treatment and natural healing that suit well the Filipino psyche. It offers integrative medicine.

Integrative medicine offers complete healing by touching all aspects for total well-being, including psychological, social, environmental, spiritual and emotional.

As part of its integrative medicine, PCPI embraces natural healing with the use of oriental medicine like acupuncture and herbal medicine. It also includes yoga, meditation, and proper diet of fruits and vegetables.

PCPI also offers “hilot”, the Filipino massage. They have a core staff to perform the “ventusa”. To complete, PCPI also offers counseling.

PCPI though is not afraid of competition instead Dr. Galvez Tan says, “We want to be imitated and copied because we want to show that helping the poor can be done in a sustainable manner.”

With the implementation of the outpatient program of PhilHealth, Dok Jimmy sees good opportunities for privately-owned clinics such as PCPI. Already, PCPI is gearing up for expansion next year to offer services to more low income earners.

According to Dok Jimmy, PCPI has almost saturated the Cubao area. “We have a good list of 16,000 low income earners from Cubao who have visited us,” reveals Dok Jimmy. They are targeting to enroll 20,000 patients from the districts in Cubao.

PCPI expansion locations are being planned in Pasig, Taytay, Cainta and Antipolo starting 2016.

“This is a good business opportunity because PhilHealth has opened its outpatient care, which has been delayed since it was first launched 20 years ago,” he adds.

Because outpatient care

is not available, Filipinos always go to hospitals instead of going to clinics.

“Generally, hospitalization is still the mode among Filipinos,” adds Dok Jimmy. In other countries, like the US, Germany, Japan patients are asked to go first to small clinics before going to hospitals unless these are emergency cases.

“There are over 5,000 outpatient cases in the Philippine General Hospital so the cost of running the hospital is big reaching R2 billion. But if this is filtered out by the clinics, the cost will not be as big as that,” says Dok Jimmy.

With the expanded PhilHealth benefits to include outpatient care, more Filipinos would be able to use their PhilHealth benefits especially the poor.

“PCPI has shown the way that we can serve the low cost income market with quality service,” he adds.

The objective of PCPI really is not to create profits but just to be sustainable.

“We are not after big profit, but just enough to sustain the cost of operating. We just have to achieve sustainability,” says Dok Jimmy.

PCPI is fully computerized and is the only health clinic in the country with truly digital operations that not even the big hospitals can come close.

“We would like to show that to other clinics and even to the big hospitals how we did it,” says Dok Jimmy. The clinic is now further fine-tuning a new software to build up its data base for the C and D market. This is to align the company’s mission and vision as a primary care plus clinic.

Dok Jimmy noted that some clinics can offer only the normal digital records but, “we can offer better and we want to share our technology with other clinics.” At present, PCPI has tied up with some NGOs and the Caritas.

The Cubao area has six government run health clinics but these centers have no facilities, not even x-rays but just plain consultation then the patient is referred to the hospitals.

So, they are not actually providing health services to the poor and the beneficiaries of the 4Ps program of the government.

“We will be the service providers for these government clinics,” says Dok Jimmy. PCPI may not be that profitable, but “we are doing well despite the odds.”

“We are not moving away from our mission because deep in our heart that is our mission. It is very important for us to keep that mission and to show our fellow Filipinos that we can deliver good quality health services at very affordable rates,” he adds.

That is one reason the PCPI expansion is to be located in commercial areas accessible to the poorest.

“We cannot be in malls because we cannot charge higher,” says Dok Jimmy.

“I never regretted my government work, I left government unscathed with no tinge of corruption or suspicion of anything,” says Dok Jimmy, who during his time the budget at the DOH was only a measly R5 billion as against the current budget of R105 billion.

A very democratic leader, Dok Jimmy delegates a lot of work to his staff stressing that is the only way to empower people.

The biggest challenge in the healthcare industry though is that Filipinos are still having the curative mind instead of being preventive. Filipinos only go to the doctors when it is crisis time already. In fact, PhilHealth boasts they have 85 million members but only 5 percent are availing of health benefits.

In Cubao, PCPI hopes to change that mentality and promote a health seeking behavior because an “early discovery of a disease can heal you immediately, but not when it is already in the advanced stage. We should be developmentoriented not crisis.”

With PCPI, Dok Jimmy believes they will be able to create some awareness that top-notch healthcare is within reach.

At 67 years old, Dok Jimmy leads a very active life and follows a hectic schedule. He swims 25 lapses every day in a 50-meter pool. He aims to saturate the Cubao market with a multi platform marketing efforts. He hosts a daily radio show over DWWW at 8:30 a.m. except Sunday.

Four PCPI representatives are visiting small companies and offer doctor’s clinics in Cubao enticing them to outsource their laboratory requirement to them.

They also partner with hospitals in some areas,” adds Dok Jimmy.

Dok Jimmy was at his best during the period 1975-1985 of “living dangerously” where he scoured the remotest areas but where he truly lived the gospel.

“The gospel says do not take anything and in those 10 years I never went hungry. There was always a room to sleep in, a roof over my head and we have food on the table. We went to the farthest places and we were always received by people. I went there without money but we always have enough. I could not explain this but I have lived the gospel that the more you give the more you receive, unfathomable graces overflowing,” says Dok Jimmy.

He may not be a super rich doctor but he was able to send his two children to the best schools. At his clinic at the PGH, he does not charge doctor’s fees but requires patients to offer “prayers and to do good deeds.”

Dok Jimmy practices everything that he preaches. He meditates for 15 minutes in the morning and evening.

Having been exposed to several religions has opened his eyes to a lot of things, but he is not one to leave his Catholic faith. He is a believer of love and forgiveness. He conducts seminars on forgiveness.

“I don’t see any reason why I should leave the religion that I grew up with,” says Dok Jimmy, who has a strong bond with the Benedictine’s doctrine of work and pray and teachings from his parents.

Dok Jimmy, who served various government positions related to health foremost of which as Undersecretary of the Department of Health during the incumbency of the well-loved Health Secretary Juan Flavier, noted that the PhilHealth Law was passed in 1995. It was crafted by the DOH led by the late Dr. Flavier and himself. These two “doctors to the barrios” wanted outpatient care to be incorporated in the PhilHealth law to reach out to the poor patients in the provinces.

Dok Jimmy recalls Dr. Flavier with fondness and reverence having shared the love and commitment to serve the rural folks.

“We did not have any conflict at all,” says Dok Jimmy.

With the advent of technology and bigger government budget, Dok Jimmy hopes that universal health care will soon be made possible.

“PCPI is trail blazing with our cutting edge technology,” says Dok Jimmy, who is still involved with other non-stock nonprofit organizations.

“I have a vision that universal healthcare be made available to the poor and near poor,” he adds.

“My life has always been with the masses,” says Dok Jimmy, who was once a student leader at the University of the Philippines during the first quarter storm. He was involved in anti-Martial Law and other anti-dictatorship rallies.

His idealism has fueled his passion that after his medical school he joined a Catholic mission to the barrios offering his services to the poorest of the poor. This is his way also of giving back his government scholarship.

Starting as the de facto Municipal Health Officer in the island municipality of Maripipi, Leyte in 1975, the young Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan, who later became known as Dok Jimmy, went on to various rural areas of Samar and Leyte partnering with the Rural Missionaries and dioceses developing communitybased health programs and training health workers; then to Kalinga-Apayao, Cagayan, Cavite, Samar, Leyte and Davao del Norte to control tuberculosis through community-based programs with AKAP; to Agusan and North Cotabato with Health and Development Mindanao; moving on to take care of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao with the UNICEF, Department of Health and Health Futures Foundation, Inc. In the rural areas, Dok Jimmy literally lived in poverty like the majority of his patients.

Despite these hard living conditions, it was easy for him to remain undeterred in fulfilling his mission: to empower the Filipino people. He practiced in doctorless communities with no electricity and hardly any transportation, slept in different homes, holding clinics in the morning and training health workers in the afternoon.

Through hills and high-rise, through shores and slums, this doctor of the masses, this doctor for the Filipinos has endeavored and continues to endeavor health for all.

Dok Jimmy says he can still take up the challenge to once again serve the rural folks, anytime.