ASIDE from taking care of the peace and order situation in Davao City, tough-talking Mayor Rodrigo Duterte also makes it a point to provide for the welfare of the sick, particularly Davaoeños suffering from kidney failure.
With the assistance of the city government’s Lingap Program, private dialysis treatment in Davao City have become more affordable for qualified patients who only have to shell out P600 per session, making it the cheapest private dialysis treatment in the country.
Trinidad F. Ola, regional manager for Mindanao of the Nephro Group of Dialysis Center, said the regular price per session under a Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) package is P3,500, where each patient undergoes 45 sessions. Thus, each patient needs a total amount of P157,000 for only 45 sessions.
Under the Lingap Program of Duterte, in coordination with the Nephro Group, PhilHealth-covered patients from Davao who qualify as beneficiaries pay only P600 since the local government of Davao shoulders a large portion of the 104 sessions offered in the package. These 104 sessions are more than double than the 45 sessions covered by the regular PhilHealth package.
The Nephro Group also attributes as one of the reasons for the inexpensive charges for the dialysis treatment the low cost of doing business in Davao City. According to the Nephro Group, it is better to do business in Davao since the city is business-friendly, especially in the matter of business registration.
Duterte has issued a standing order in city hall’s Business Bureau that all applications for business and license registration must be resolved within a maximum period of 72 hours, otherwise the officer in charge of the application shall answer directly to him.
“Sa amin sa Davao, kailangan ma-resolba ang isang application to operate a business within 72 hours.Kapag lumagpas ang 72 hours at hindi pa naa-aksyunan ang application to operate business, kailangang umakyat ang application sa opisina ko at doon kailangan magpaliwanag ang opisyal na may hawak ng application sa harap ko kung bakit lumagpas ng tatlong araw ang decision,” Duterte said.
Nephro Group records reveal that since the Lingap Program was launched, patients undergoing the treatment doubled.
“Two years ago we had only 500 patients, now we have a thousand and most of our patients belong to the age bracket 50 to 60 whose disease were the result of diabetes and hypertension,” according to Nephro Group Medical Director Frank Guillano.