TACLOBAN CITY – Residents from Tabontabon and nearby towns have a reason to smile these days.
This as Mayor-elect Rustico “Toti” Balderian bared that he will be investing P30 million to construct a modern, 100-bed hospital right inside the Colegio de Santa Lourdes of Leyte Foundation (CSLLF), which is owned by Balderian himself.
According to the newly elected mayor, who has made fortune in the medical transcription business in the United States, he envisioned the multi-million project as there is a need for a well-equipped health facility that will serve the people in his hometown and nearby areas.
Also, he said that a training facility that will compliment the family-owned nursing school is very much in need.
“As of now, people from Tabon and adjacent towns have to go to Tacloban for their medical needs, especially major surgeries and operations. If there is a hospital in Tabontabon, patients from the barangays there, Dulag, Tanauan, Tolosa, and other towns could be brought there, instead of being transported to hospitals in Tacloban City,” he stressed.
Also, with the growing population of nursing students enrolled at the CSLLF, a medical training facility is badly needed, thus the project was conceptualized,” Baderian added. Before, our students have to train in other hospitals which are way far from here,” he said.
As of now, there are 338 students studying Nursing at the said school, and the number is rising as more students have enrolled there.
He further said that he would pour an initial P30 million to convert two dormitory buildings into hospital and for the purchase of modern medical equipment from the US and other countries that will rival those in well-established hospitals in the city like St. Paul’s and Bethany Hospital.
While his plan to construct such facility has been blocked before by a “hostile”
Sangguniang Bayan (SB) before, Balderian expressed optimism that the project would be approved easily now as majority of council members are his allies.
SB candidates allied with Balderian, who himself beat reelectionist Mayor Priscilla Justimbaste, captured six of eight council seats in the last elections.
I believe that what happened in 2005 when the SB approved of the project would not happen again as majority of SB members now are my allies,” Balderian pointed out.
