P1.2-B medical plaza soon to rise in Isabela

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NAGUILIAN, Isabela — A P1.2-billion cooperative-managed Providers Medical Plaza in Barangay San Manuel will soon rise here.

GROUNDBREAKING FOR P1.2-B MEDICAL PLAZA Health care professionals led by Department of Health Undersecretary Dr. Glenn Mathew Baggao (center) strike a pose during the groundbreaking of the P1.2-billion Providers Medical Plaza and blessing of the tertiary laboratory and intensive care unit on March 19, 2025. PHOTO BY VINCE JACOB VISAYA

The groundbreaking rites for this project were held on Wednesday, March 19, with Dr. Glenn Mathew Baggao, Department of Health undersecretary, as guest speaker.

"This medical plaza is expected to have state-of-the-arts facilities, and we look forward to a memorandum of agreement for sharing of specialized doctor-consultants to widen health care services," said Baggao.

The billion-peso medical plaza and tertiary laboratory and intensive care unit are an expansion of the existing 42-bed medical center in Naguilian. The expansion is meant to upgrade health services and widen access for health care in the province.

The expansion in a 7.8-hectare area will have 196-bed capacity with pediatrics, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, general surgery and other specialization services such as hemodialysis, laser center, ortho center, catheterization laboratory, and heart and lung center, said Providers Medical Center director Dr. Maria Fe Navarette.

The plaza will also soon have training center and a medical school, she added.

Providers Cooperative director Marie Dee Balagan, a certified public accountant, said the cooperative, which has expanded into health care services aside from real estate and loan services, said the board members have been upbeat with the medical center's success.

"We are so much surrounded with people that are reliable, competent, loving, dedicated and, I can say now, loyal to the medical center for being contributing members," she added.

As this developed, Doctor Baggao said the poor and financially incapacitated villagers would also be helped by the health department through the Medical Assistance for Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients (Maifip) program, an alternative to the benefits that can be availed from the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation.

"The Health department's program is intended to provide financial support to indigent and poor patients seeking medical examination, consultation, treatment, and rehabilitation and those confined in government hospitals for indigent and financially-strapped people," he added.

Baggao said more memoranda of agreements of the Cagayan Valley Medical Center in Tuguegarao City and the Southern Isabela Medical Center in Santiago City with private hospitals are also being lined up.

He said that the latest memorandum of agreement signed on Tuesday was between the City of Ilagan Medical Center (CIMC) and the Cagayan Valley Medical Center (CVMC) wherein the CVMC would deploy 18 health care consultants such as doctors, nurses and other workers for specialized services to the CIMC.