Accessibility to medical services of about 42,000 residents of Anda in Pangasinan, an island town, will be better by the first half of 2025 following the groundbreaking on Monday of the PHP10 million super health center.

Anda municipal health officer Dr. Gillen Vuelta, in a phone interview on Wednesday, said the center will be an additional health facility in the town on top of their Rural Health Unit (RHU).

“It would also have other medical equipment such as an X-ray machine, which we do not have in our RHU,” she said in Filipino.

The facility will provide minor surgical procedures as well as outpatient clinic and consultation. It will also have a pharmacy, radiology, birthing and lying-in clinics, and clinical laboratory with direct sputum smear processing and microscopy capability.

Vuelta said the nearest hospital to the island town is in the mainland, the Bolinao Community Hospital, which is 15 to 20 minutes away from the RHU in Barangay Poblacion.

The super health center is funded under the Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFEP) under the 2024 national budget, and will be the 11th in the province after the ones in the cities of Dagupan and Alaminos, and the towns of Asingan, Balungao, Basista, Binalaonan, Manaoag, Mapandan, Tayug, and Umingan. (PNA)