Tacloban: A private clinic here has rolled out its mobile health services delivery to poor communities in Eastern Visayas to support the Yaman ng Kalusugan Program (YAKAP) of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

According to Philippines News Agency, the mobile clinic, with five full-time nurses and partner doctors, has already served over 3,000 patients in Leyte province and other parts of the region with free consultations, laboratory tests, and medicines. "After the State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., we started deploying our team of nurses and partner doctors to offer an expanded package of accessible health services," Athena Ramirez, founder and owner of Caring Frontiers, said in a phone interview on Monday.

Ramirez explained that their initiative is a contribution to the government's effort to expand budget utilization for outpatient services, noting that a substantial portion, about 87 percent, of the government's healthcare spending is in hospitals. The clinic has been coordinating with local governments and several organizations to conduct mobile consultation and laboratory testing in communities.

"In addition to providing healthcare, we also help people with their PhilHealth membership status so they can easily access services from accredited YAKAP providers," Ramirez added. She encouraged individuals to reach out for enrollment, so their family members and friends can benefit from scheduled visits by the mobile clinic team.

On July 25, three days before his fourth SONA, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. launched YAKAP, aiming to bring healthcare services closer to communities and reduce the need for hospital confinement. The program expanded the existing services to offer a broader range of free primary care, including access to 75 essential medicines, laboratory tests, and cancer screenings. YAKAP builds on PhilHealth's Konsultasyong Sulit at Tama (Konsulta) program, which focuses on prevention rather than treatment.