DAVAO CITY -— Senate Majority Leader Francis “Tol” Tolentino announced Friday (28 June) that the University of Southeastern Philippines (USeP) here will have its own general hospital.

In an interview at the sidelines during the school’s commencement exercises where the senator is the guest speaker, he said he deemed it necessary to have the said hospital since the state university is now offering medical courses.

The USeP School of Medicine (SoM) is the first, and currently the only state-run medical school in Region 11.

USeP-SoM is committed to addressing doctor shortages in Region 11; producing globally competitive physicians aligned with ASEAN standards; offering affordable medical education to deserving low-income students, instilling a community-based approach; and fostering globally competitive medical researchers.

Its overarching aim is to cultivate medical doctors from and for the community.

“We have to put up a general hospital because they have a medical school. That is my wish for this university,” Tolentino said.

He added that he will help in providing the budget for the medical facility and hopeful that the hospital will be completed in two years’ time.

“I already told two universities about this, the other one is in Zamboanga- Western Mindanao State University. We only have 75,000 doctors, others have retired and go abroad,” Tolentino said, adding that, the population in the country is increasing.