Wednesday, June 20, 2007

2 Korean medical volunteers visit Agbannawag

Dr. Seok Tin Ahn, cardiologist, and Sima Cha, nurse and a clinical research manager, both from South Korea visited the province for a medical mission last June 5-6,2007.

The two-day medical mission was conducted at Kalinga-Gabriela Mija Kim Foundation (KGMKF) Medical Center, the medical center donated by the Medical Peace Foundation of Korea, in Agbannawag, this town.

According to Dr. Ahn, he was invited by Former Korean Ambassador to the Philippines Key Sung Sing Cho to visit Kalinga.

"Ambassador Cho was my patient and my good friend," Ahn said.

"He (Cho) told me to carry out a medical mission here in Kalinga particularly in Agbannawag to help the people needing medical assistance and to support in the setting up of the medical equipments for the hospital," Ahn added.

Ms. Thelma Bayle-Ng, appointed representative and administrator of the KGMKF medical center told Guru Press that the medical mission was programmed for three days with 100 patients a day.

"But with the inflow of patients for the first and second day of the mission coming not only from Agbannawag but even Bulanao, Dagupan, Lacnog, Sitio Soto, New Balbalan, Ileb and Tuga, we were able to serve and even exceeded the supposed number of beneficiaries at the end of the second day," Ng said, "We already served 340 beneficiaries so we have to cancel the mission for the third day, because the medicines that were brought by the two Korean medical volunteers were only intended for 300 patients," Ng explained.

Ng pleaded to those who were not able to avail of the free medical assistance that there will be another medical mission saying that "I received an e-mail from Former Ambassador Cho saying that Korea will soon be sending more medical volunteers and medicines sometime on July."

Meanwhile, Dr. Ahn explained that since this is their first time to visit the Philippines particularly Kalinga, they actually do not know what medicines to bring.

"But now that we have the information on the needs of the people, we will be able to advise other Korean medical teams to the Philippines on what medicines should they bring along with them," Ahn said.

Asked about their assessment on the health condition of the people, Sima Cha said that there are a lot of people who could not get enough medical services.

"If we have the chance to come back, we will be happy to bring more medicines and ask more medical volunteers so that we could help more people," Cha said.

Dr. Ahn added his findings that most of the patients during the medical mission suffered from respiratory tract infection, hypertension, ear infection and diarrhea.

The medical mission was carried out in cooperation with the provincial government unit, barangay health workers, social workers, nurses from the provincial hospital, barangay officials of Agbannawag and other benefactors like Dr. Nellie Alejandrino, Christine Wangdali, and Virginia "Aida" Basilan. **Guru Press, June 11, 2007

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