Taguig City residents received world-class medical services on Sunday during a humanitarian mission organized by dzIQ Radyo Inquirer 990 AM, the broadcast arm of the Inquirer Group of Companies.
A 28-member team from St. Luke’s Medical Center attended to some 400 indigent patients who gathered at the barangay (village) hall in Western Bicutan for the half-day project.
It was not a typical medical mission, said Cecille Ignacio, project coordinator of St. Luke’s Sagip-Bayan Foundation Inc. “We are not just doing consultations and giving away medicines, we are here to bring the modern technology that we have in the hospital,” Ignacio said.
The volunteer doctors and nurses performed minor surgeries, dental extractions and treatments, and consultations.
One of the patients, Madelyn Resare, came with a cyst just below her armpit which she had been enduring for 10 years.
“I just had no money to have it removed,” said the 55-year-old housewife, minutes after a surgeon finally ended her problem.
Ignacio noted that, like Resare, “most of our patients today would rather spend money on food and other immediate needs than treat a condition which they think they can endure for the rest of their lives.”
Roselle Fortes-Leung, marketing manager for Radyo Inquirer, wryly noted that “this medical mission is quite bloody” since most of the services rendered for free were surgeries and dental extractions.
The Taguig mission was the third to be conducted by Radyo Inquirer, with the first held in Barangay Maliksi in Bacoor, Cavite province, and the second in Biliran province last year.
Among dzIQ’s partners for the mission are Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, RiteMed, the 1-Utak party-list group, and Unilab.