Eastern Samar folks welcome UAE-funded health center

DOLORES, Eastern Samar, March 14 (PNA) -- Jessa Oraller, 30, a resident of Oras, Eastern Samar, said the opening of the state-of-the-art Dolores Community Health Center here is also a great blessing to people from nearby towns. 

“We have been waiting something like this especially to people like us from rural communities who don’t have the means to travel Tacloban City for medical attention. This is really an answered prayer,” said Oraller, a former journalist and now an administrative officer of MacArthur National Agricultural School in Eastern Samar.

Oras is only 56 kilometers from this town, compared to four to five hours of travel to Tacloban City, the regional center of Eastern Visayas region. Dolores is 254 kilometers northeast from the regional capital.

The new community health center was inaugurated on March 10 in this third class town. It will serve 120,000 people in the northern part of Eastern Samar - Oras, Taft, San Julian, Jipapad, Arteche, Can-avid and Maslog towns.

The two-storey Dolores Community Health Center is a joint project of the Philippine Red Cross, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Department of Health (DOH) and the local government unit of Dolores.

This is a fulfillment of the PHP506million pledge of the UAE President Sheikh Khalifa, to those affected by super typhoon Yolanda on Nov. 8, 2013.

Khalifa is also the President of the Emirates Red Crescent (ERC) movement in his country.

This is part of the series of projects of UAE in Eastern Visayas, one of the badly ravaged regions by the deadliest typhoon in the country.

Philippine Red Cross chairman Senator Richard Gordon who inspected firsthand the battered town of Dolores three years ago, immediately connected with UAE-ERC to build a modern community clinic.

“This new clinic aims to build resilient communities in the Haiyan-devastated municipalities in Eastern Samar,” said Gordon in a statement.

“Maternal and child-care are two of the health services to be offered at the clinic. The new facility also aims to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health, which are two of the organizations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDG),” he added.

Last year, the UAE turned over new six new school-buildings, gymnasium, laboratories, computers and school learning materials in Basey, Samar. (PNA)

LAM/SQM/VICKY C. ARNAIZ