Cabuyao—After more than 25 years, residents of this bustling city can now have direct access to modern medical facilities following the completion of the Cabuyao City Hospital, the largest local government-run hospital in the province of Laguna.
Cabuyao City Mayor Rommel A. Gecolea has renewed his commitment to meet the health needs of Cabuyeños during the hospital’s soft opening attended by more than 9,000 Cabuyeños recently.
Apart from having the largest floor area at 10,090.31 square meters, the Cabuyao City Hospital also holds the record for the largest fund allocated by a local government unit for a project in Laguna.
The construction of the Cabuyao City Hospital began in October 2017 in Barangay San Isidro with the city government, through City Resolution No. 162-2017, allocating P400 million for the first phase of the project.
The Cabuyao City Hospital is accorded by the Department of Health as a second level hospital. It has a total bed capacity of 150, and features a Heart Station, Radiology and other laboratories, Emergency Department, Outpatient Department, Dialysis Complex, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Operating, Delivery, and Recovery Complex, Intensive Care Unit, OB Gyne Complex, Internal Medicine Ward, Pediatrics Ward, and Surgical Ward.
The hospital was borne out of the need of the city to expand its healthcare services. For decades, the old Ospital ng Cabuyao was the only public hospital in the city, and it remained unchanged until Mayor Gecolea took over as the city’s chief executive in June 2016
In his first two years as mayor, Gecolea managed to secure a P30-million budget for the rehabilitation of the Ospital ng Cabuyao into a Children and Maternity Hospital.
The mayor said he had been working hard to meet the healthcare needs of Cabuyeños so they would not need to seek treatment at regional hospitals or private hospitals.
Following the completion of the facility, the free medicine program of the city government, which has 50,000 registered beneficiaries and has been ongoing over the past three years, is fully augmented.
BOTICAB, or Cabuyao Pharmacy, a project of Mayor Gecolea, is the second free drugstore in the Philippines located in a city hall. The first is in Makati City.
The project, which has a P30-million budget from the city government, aims to provide free medicines to Cabuyeños.
Each Cabuyeño family can receive P10,000 worth of free medicine within one year. Differently-abled individuals and senior citizens are also entitled to P10,000 worth of medicines from BOTICAB.
In 2016, BOTICAB had a total of 7,822 beneficiaries. The following year, it had 28,812 beneficiaries. In the past year, it has added a total of 29,062 beneficiaries—217 are 4Ps beneficiaries, 448 are persons with disabilities, and 9,064 are senior citizens.
The pharmacy has around 457 different types of medicines, ranging from over-the-counter drugs to maintenance medication. Every day, at least 500 Cabuyeños are given free medicine.