Hospital within patients’ reach

For years, residents of Barugo, Leyte had to make do with limited hospital facilities — often traveling to Tacloban for checkups, specialized monitoring, and care that their municipal hospital could not fully provide. Today, the Barugo Municipal Hospital Wellness Hub marks a clear step forward: a facility designed not only to treat illness, but to make quality healthcare more accessible, comfortable, and responsive to the needs of the community.

Where the old setup offered limited beds and basic hospital accommodations, the wellness hub now adds 10 beds and provides dedicated pediatric and geriatric areas. Where young patients once had to use standard hospital beds, the facility now has beds designed for the safety of infants and children under two years old. There is even a shared activity space for children and senior citizens.

The hub, upgraded through a collaboration of SM Foundation and the local government of Barugo, also brings digital tools for telemedicine, electronic medical records, and PhilHealth services — helping health workers manage patient information more efficiently and connect residents with medical consultations when needed.

For families like that of Zenaida Colibao, 72, the difference is deeply personal.

Her son has kidney disease and needs regular monitoring. Before he became ill, he helped support the family through farming and work in Manila. When his health made it impossible for him to continue, he returned home to Barugo to be closer to the family who could care for him.

But while he was closer to his loved ones, medical care was not always close enough.

Zenaida still remembers the trips to Tacloban for her son’s checkups — the distance, the expenses, and the difficulty of managing a whole day around hospital visits while their household was already burdened by illness.

While caring for her son, Zenaida also manages her own hypertension through daily medication.

“The hospital in Barugo is a big help for my son. We no longer need to travel to Tacloban,” Colibao said, referring to the Barugo Municipal Hospital Wellness Hub. Her son can now receive regular monitoring and checkups at the nearby facility.

Care designed for every generation

“This initiative is an expansion of fostering communities of whatever age. There’s going to be an interaction among the elderly and the children, while waiting for their turn to be examined. We made sure that it is fully equipped and for the children,” said Connie Angeles, SM Foundation executive director for health and medical programs.

Barugo Mayor Dr. Aron C. Balais said the new beds are especially important for young patients.

“This is also the first time that there are beds for the smaller babies because the beds in the ward are really hospital beds. The new beds are very important for the safety of the children, especially those less than two years old,” he said.

The pediatric and geriatric areas were designed to feel warmer and more home-like, helping make hospital visits less intimidating for children, older adults and the relatives who accompany them.

The shared activity area, developed through a collaboration between SM Foundation and the Barugo local government, gives young and elderly patients a chance to interact while waiting for their checkups, instead of simply sitting in a clinical setting.

More than a renovated facility

From January to early July 2026, the Barugo Municipal Hospital handled around 4,000 outpatient consultations and as many as 20 inpatients a day, serving a municipality of about 35,000 people, Balais said. Patients seek treatment for conditions ranging from urinary tract infections, gastroenteritis, and pneumonia to hypertension, diabetes and stroke.

With more space and services available locally, residents now have fewer reasons to travel to larger cities for care they can receive at home.

For caregivers like Zenaida, having access to nearby healthcare also means being able to look after their own well-being.

“It is still important to guard one’s health because if you don’t have strength, you won’t be able to thoroughly care for your ward,” she said.

The wellness hub closes the distance in more ways than one. It means Zenaida’s son no longer has to travel to Tacloban for checkups. It means her grandchildren and Barugo’s elders can receive care under the same roof. And it means that when Zenaida herself needs rest and medical attention, care is no longer something she must travel far to find — it is already home.

What Barugo now has is not just a renovated facility, but a health center that reflects what every community deserves: care that is close enough to reach, early enough to matter, and complete enough that fewer families have to choose between treatment and the cost of getting to it.