For Bohol patients, financial services courtesy of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) are soon available at their doorstep. It used to be that PCSO assistance is only available in Manila or Cebu entailing of lot of expenses adding more burden to the helpless patients. Not anymore. Due to insistent lobbying of Gov. Edgar Chatto, a PCSO branch will soon be open here allowing Boholanos the opportunity of availing the services of the charity organization. According to a Capitol press release, even those who have to undergo critical surgeries in hospitals already outside Bohol as in Cebu or Manila can get prior clearance from the local PCSO office for necessary assistance, the governor said. The local PCSO office occupies the former Bohol Tourism Office (BTO) beside the Philippine Gift of Life at the provincial Capitol complex.

Two widely beneficial charity works of the PCSO are its Endowment Fund Program (EFP) and Individual Medical Assistance Program (IMAP). During the Kita ug Ang Gobernador live broadcast on Friday, Chatto announced the granting of PCSO endowment funds to the Gov. Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital, province-run district hospital in Jagna and an infirmary in Dimiao. The Endowment Fund Program (EFP) of the PCSO allocates funding assistance to government and private hospitals for the indigent patients who are in need of medical care, medicines, drugs, medical and surgical supplies, and diagnostic procedures for the management and treatment of illnesses. It specifically enables charity patients to medicines, drugs, medical supplies, inplants, blood, and diagnostic and laboratory procedures. Under PCSO’s IMAP, medical assistance is given to individual patients through the issuance of guarantee letters to hospitals where the patients are confined.

A guarantee letter is a certification issued to hospitals for a particular charity patient under the program, in which the PCSO assumes the obligation of settling the cost of hospitalization, including medicines, medical, surgical or blood supplies, and diagnostic procedures. Specifically, this program provides assistance for hospitalization expenses, laboratory procedures, and purchase of medicines, chemo drugs, dialysis solutions, antibiotics, implants, devices and other medical needs. The governor thanked the Sangguniang Panlalawigan led by Vice Gov. Concepcion Lim for totally supporting the move finally bringing in a PCSO service office here. The activity on Tuesday, July 31, will initially be a soft opening of the PCSO office while the grand opening is set in September with no less than PCSO Chair Margarita Juico gracing the affair. The office will be initially manned by PCSO personnel from the Cebu while local staff are hired and trained for permanent manpower. Access to health care for all is a bedrock program of the Chatto administration. (Ven rebo Arigo)