Business exec shows interest in Cebu City’s free medicines program

The Cebu City government’s Long Life Medical Assistance Program will get a needed boost once a top business executive of an investment company makes good on his promise to help in the program.

Mayor Tomas Osmeña said that the president of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), Joey Lim, had shown interest in helping the city in the program especially in the procurement of the medicines.

“The most important thing is that he is in charge of hospitals. So he said they consolidated their medicine purchase and they buy hundreds of millions of pesos worth of medicines and it is much cheaper. So I told him, sakay na lang mi,” Osmeña said in a press briefing yesterday.

The Long Life Medical Assistance program aims to distribute free medicines to 24,000 beneficiaries in the city.

Osmeña said he planned to reach up to 40,000 constituents in the future.

As of now, the city spends P20 million for the program.

Osmeña said with the new development, the city could save a lot of money.

“Our problem is that we are spending a lot of money on medicines primarily because our suppliers here seem to be in connivance. They do not like to bid lower prices. So now, we are going to bypass all of them,” he said.

He admitted, though, that it would take time for the city to start purchasing medicines directly with Lim because of the bureaucratic procedure.

He however said that what is important is that there is a direction in the program.

“This is the kind of thing that makes my life as mayor interesting,” he said as he promised to start working on this development on Monday.

He said that it would be an efficient system and that his only concern would be the improvement of the quality of life of the city’s constituents at a cheaper cost for them.