Health facets, workers get P217.3-M worth of aid from BARMM lawmakers

COTABATO CITY — Health services in the Bangsamoro region got a boost with the release of P217.3 million worth of ambulances, mobile clinics and other vital provisions for hospitals and medical dispensaries in its six provinces on Monday.

The equipment, channeled through the office of Regional Health Minister Kadil Monera Sinolinding Jr., were procured by members of the 80-seat parliament of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao using their individual 2022, 2023 and 2024 Transitional Development Impact Fund, or TDIF.

They also allocated funds for medicines to be stored in different hospitals and health centers and for allowances of barangay health workers in Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi provinces.

Sinolinding and BARMM’s chief minister, Ahod Balawag Ebrahim, facilitated the transfer of the 48 land ambulances, two sea ambulances, two van-type mobile clinics and eight special patient transport vehicles to local government units, hospitals and health centers in a symbolic rite at the regional capitol in Cotabato City on Monday.

“This new set of equipment will hasten the delivery of health services and emergency response operations of health workers in the autonomous region,” Sinolinding, a concurrent member of the Bangsamoro parliament, told reporters at the sideline of Monday’s event.

Sinolinding said the Ministry of Health-BARMM is grateful to Ebrahim and the members of the parliament who allocated fractions of their TDIF for the procurement of the equipment and for providing funds for allowances of health workers in far-flung areas.