TF Foundation gives medicines to home for the aged in Barili

In line with its commitment to serve the less fortunate and the oppressed through its special projects, The FREEMAN Foundation visited the elderly people of Hospicio de San Jose in barangay Guibuangan, Barili town last Saturday to hand over aid in the form of medicines, toiletries and gift items.

The foundation headed by TF general manager Melandro Mendoza and TFF administrator, Dr. Remedios Yap-Bacasmas led the visit to the institution.

This first special project of the TFF carries the theme: "Ageless appeallove ng taga-The FREEMAN to!" The foundation had chosen the Hospicio founded by Don Pedro and his sister Doña Benigna Cui as all of its residents are destitute and that it does not receive fees from any of its residents.

The Hospicio sits on reclaimed land in Guibuangan, Barili, some 61 kilometers southwest of Cebu City. It has a 100-bed facility with separate quarters for male and female. There is also a clinic, a building for those who need special medical care, a guesthouse and an administration building, a refectory and some other buildings, most of which are existing when it was formally inaugurated on March 19,1927.

The Cuis established the said facility as a home for aged people who have no family to take care of them. To further ensure the facility, the Cuis had it chartered by the national government through Legislative Act 3239, which was passed into law in 1925.

According to Charito Torres, a social worker who regularly reports there, most of their residents are unmarried individuals while there are few who are married, but are childless and have already lost their partners.

Torres also said that apart from the age requirement of not less than 60 years old for an applicant to be admitted at the Hospicio, he/she must be indigent and helpless. The applicant, she said, must also not have communicable diseases such as tuberculosis so as not to inflict other residents who already have weak resistance to diseases. The applicant must not also have any mental disorder.

And most importantly, she said, the applicant must be willing to be placed in the Hospicio as there are some who would rather stray on the streets than be cared for.

Currently, the place has 39 aged residents; 28 are females and 11 are males.