Herbosa: 37 mobile clinics deployed in Luzon

Health Secretary Ted Herbosa on Tuesday said that 37 mobile clinics have already been distributed all over Luzon.

This, as he affirmedPresident Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr’s promise of having more in every province, which the Chief Executive mentioned during his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday.

During the 2024 post-SONA discussions, Herbosa said that they were already able to procure 83 mobile clinics that were funded through the President’s social fund. Of these, 37 were already serving people in Regions 1 to 5, including the Cordillera Administrative Region. 

“All the provinces in Luzon have been given this in the past two months, and we are bringing the next batches to Visayas and Mindanao,” the Secretary of the Department of Health (DOH) said. 

“I think there's plans to procure more, if this is really a successful project, because again, it's in line with what the President ordered—to bring healthcare closer to the people,” he added. 

Herbosa said that 46 vehicles have yet to be distributed in Visayas and Mindanao provinces “within the year.”

In his SONA on Monday, Marcos said he will ensure that mobile primary care clinics will be deployed in every province to extend healthcare services to people living outside the metro. 

Each mobile clinic is equipped with modern medical equipment, such as digital x-ray machine and ultrasound machines, hematology analyzers, binocular microscope, clinical centrifuge, ophthalmoscope, reagent refrigerator, among others. 

Herbosa said he aims to have the mobile clinics go to remote areas and not only stay in the capital of provinces where medical services are usually available.

“So the idea of the mobile clinic is that it would go to the remote areas where doctors can't go. And it will be given to the governors so that the DOH can also help them with personnel and provide modern primary care to the remotest areas of our geographically isolated and disadvantaged area,” the DOH Secretary said. —VAL, GMA Integrated News