Bill demands free dialysis treatment for low-income patients
By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Freshman congresswoman, Negros Occidental fifth district Rep. Marilou Arroyo-Lesaca, is expected to file five bills before the 18th Congress, which opens today. The introduced legislation primarily focused on rural health and the welfare of senior citizens and persons with disabilities.
Among the items she will submit includes the Dialysis Center Act, which calls for all national, regional, and provincial government hospitals to establish a dialysis ward and provide free treatment to low-income patients. The congresswoman said, through the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, or PhilHealth, monthly treatments can cost between P20,000 and P30,000.
“The accessibility and availability of dialysis centers in the country remains limited,” she explained. “In many cases, indigent patients hardly even get a session of dialysis.”
“Advanced hospital and medical equipment and facilities are found mostly in highly-urbanized cities,” she legislator added. “End stage renal disease patients from rural areas have to travel all the way to these urban cities just to receive the treatment they need.”
Meanwhile, the other bills include a proposal to provide a 32 percent discount on the travel tax for senior citizens and the disabled; distributing benefits for centenarians, or those who have reached the age of 100, to 80 year olds; creating a dental unit for every rural health unit; and converting the provincial road from Moises Padilla to La Castellana into a secondary national road./DGB, WDJ