Bangsamoro parliament eyeing 2 island hospitals
COTABATO CITY — Members of the Bangsamoro parliament want to improve a small medical dispensary and create a new one to service patients on two remote islands where sick islanders can hardly be evacuated to modern hospitals when seas are rough.
The Information Office of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) parliament announced on Tuesday that regional lawmakers have filed Bill 269, an enabling measure for the setting up of the Bongo Community Hospital in Bongo Island in Parang, Maguindanao del Norte, and Bill 264, meant to improve the Siasi District Hospital in Siasi, Sulu.
Siasi is an island town close to the border of the territorial seas of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, both component-provinces of BARMM.
The proposal to create the Bongo Community Hospital, or BCH, was authored by BARMM parliament members Suwaib L. Oranon and the physician-ophthalmologist Kadil M. Sinolinding, Jr., most known as “the doctor in the Bangsamoro parliament.”
His humanitarian team has treated free 3,116 marginalized people with eye problems from across the Bangsamoro region and Region 12 since he was appointed member of the regional parliament last August.
Bongo Island, covering Barangays Litayen, Tagudtungan, Tuka Maror, Gadungan Pibpandaran, Macarimbang, Limbayan and Kutungan, is home to mixed Iranun, Tausug, Sama and Badjao communities, is about seven miles off the shores of the seaside Parang town in northwest of Maguindanao del Norte.
Parang Mayor Cahar P. Ibay told reporters on Tuesday that he and his constituent barangay officials in Bongo are thankful to Mr. Sinolinding and Mr. Oranon for authoring a bill aiming to set up a community hospital in the island.
“We are wishing for its immediate enactment into a regional law. We are ready to help put up that medical facility in Bongo once its creation gets the approval of the 80-member BARMM parliament,” Mr. Ibay said.
The BARMM parliament’s Information Office said Bill 264 is also an enabling measure for the expansion of the Siasi District Hospital, or SDH, operating for 58 years now.
The bill, if approved by the BARMM parliament, shall double the 25-bed capacity of the facility and make facilities hospital-grade.
Bill 264 was authored by parliament members Mr. Sinolinding, Hamid U. Malik, Nurredha I. Misuari, Deputy Speaker Abdulkarim T. Misuari, Tarhata M. Maglangit, Amilbahar S. Mawallil, Rasol Y. Mitmog, Hashemi N. Dilangalen, Albakil D. Jikiri, Romeo K. Sema, Muslimin A. Jakilan, Adzfar H. Usman, Denmartin A. Kahalan, Randolph C. Parcasio, and Abdulazis M. Amenoden.
Both Bills 264 and 269 compel the Ministry of Health-BARMM to oversee and bankroll the operations of the proposed hospitals. — John Felix M. Unson