Mayor Isko Moreno with GABMMC director Dr. Ted Martin. (JERRY S. TAN)
Isko lauds GABMMC’s ‘top of the line’ services
MANILA Mayor Isko Moreno expressed pride as he greeted the top officials as well as the health frontliners behind the successful operation of the Gat Andres Bonifacio Memorial Medical Center (GABMMC) headed by Dr. Ted Martin, on the occasion of its 23rd founding anniversary yesterday.
Moreno was joined by Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna and Secretary to the Mayor Bernie Ang in extolling Martin. for providing ‘top of the line’ services that are at par with known private hospitals.
It will be recalled that during his stint with the then Justice Abad Santos Mother and Child Hospital, the Department of Health recognized the said institution as a premier hospital when it came to services, thus upgrading its status to a general hospital so that it subsequently became known as the Justice Abad Santos General Hospital. The said hospital is located in the third district of Manila.
Both Moreno and Lacuna vowed to continue finding ways to fully support the needs of the GABMMC and all the city-run hospitals in keeping with the times and in terms of equipment, medicines and number of medical personnel.
On the part of Ang, meanwhile, he said that the way Martin had been running GABMMC has effectively restored the public’s confidence in public hospitals.
The GABMMC under the directorship of Martin serves the populous first district of Manila (Tondo 1) where coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases have been consistently high from the start of the pandemic.
The said hospital is also home to the Siojo Dialysis Center, touted as the biggest in Asia-Pacific and which serves numerous dialysis patients that are even being ferried to and from their homes each treatment.
In this pandemic, Moreno said the challenges being hurdled by Martin on a daily basis doubled, as some dialysis patients contracted COVID-19.
Apart from handling the said unique cases, Moreno said Martin’s hospital also now has a new CT scan machine that can identify, among many others, brain and lung conditions including COVID-related infections.
While a plain brain CT scan in private hospitals amounts to anywhere from P15,000 to P25,000, Moreno directed Martin to offer such services for free.
Said machine, Moreno said, can easily identify brain conditions like stroke, aneurysm, brain tumor, meningitis, encephalitis and even COVID-related brain infections. It can also be useful for early detection of heart attacks as well as for liver cancer, stomach intestinal cancer and all kinds of lumps in the stomach, along with COVID lung condition, lung cancer, pulmonary embolism and clear picture of COVID pneumonia (Ground Glass appearance).
“Makakaasa naman kayo na hanggang sa abot ng makakaya ng pamahalaang-lungsod ay magpapatuloy kami sa pagbibigay ng suporta sa inyong ospital,” Moreno assured Martin and all his staff, with a call for them to take good care of themselves.
