Senatorial aspirant and former Vice President Jejomar Binay on Wednesday said the government must prepare and provide help for hospitals and health facilities in provinces in the event cases of COVID-19 Omicron variant rise again.
“The national government can provide provincial hospitals and health facilities with the basic tools to fight the surge: medicines, equipment, and manpower,” he said.
Binay added that if needed, the national government can deploy health workers from Metro Manila and other areas with low infection cases to these provinces.
“Public hospitals and health centers in the provinces operate with little budgets and lack facilities, medicines, and health workers. The national government must help them,” said Binay.
At the same time, the former Vice President said the vaccination drive should be intensified in these areas to give residents more protection against the Omicron variant.
“It’s also important to vaccinate more people. The vaccination rate is still low in most of these areas,” he said.
Binay said hospitals and health facilities are mainly located in Metro Manila and key areas of Luzon and this imbalance “has not been addressed over the years.”
“Long-term, this imbalance must be addressed. We need to provide funds to build more hospitals and other health facilities in the provinces, upgrade their facilities, ensure the availability of medicine, and provide decent wages for health workers,” he said.
Binay earlier led the turnover of COVID-19 vaccines donated by the Makati City government to local government units in Malvar, Batangas, and Meycauayan in Bulacan.
The donation is in line with the city government’s sister-LGU program.