Korean doctors successfully conduct medical mission for OFWs

 

Korean specialist doctors and medical practitioners have provided free medical services to overseas Filipino workers in celebration of the vibrant economic ties and friendship between the OFW host (Korea) and sending (the Philippines) countries, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) today bared. 

 

Labor and Employment Secretary Marianito D. Roque was apprised by the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Korea that the one-day provision of the medical services to OFWs was conducted simultaneously with the "One Philippines" Exhibition at the Seoul City Hall Plaza last May 31, in celebration of the enduring friendship between the Philippines and Korea.

 

Labor Attache Delmer R. Cruz, who heads the POLO in Seoul, emphasized that the medical mission highlighted a day dedicated to migrant workers as part of the three-day celebration in Korea of the 60^th Anniversary of Philippine-Korean Relations from May 29 to 31, 2009.

 

Cruz said the POLO had invited the OFWs in that country to avail of the free medical services provided by a medical team from Korea's prestigious Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH).

 

He said that the head of the Korean medical mission, vice president Oh, Byung Hee of the SNUH, had assured the provision of high quality services, rendered for free for the benefit of OFWs working in the Korean economy.

 

Cruz indicated that the SNUH team, composed primarily of specialist doctors and other medical practitioners, had put up three booths equipped with state-of-the-art medical facilities, complemented by a medical laboratory bus, thus providing a wide range of medical analysis, diagnostic and other medical assistance as necessary.

 

Secretary Roque said that no less than President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had declared the Year 2009 as the "Philippines-Korea Friendship Year."

 

The Labor Chief hailed the provision of the one-day free medical services in Seoul as a joint humanitarian and life-giving endeavor beneficial to the OFWs, and a positive step that will further strengthen the vibrant labor bilateral relations between the two economies.

 

"Indeed, Korea has definitely maintained its status as one of the top host countries in the world of the globally-preferred overseas Filipino workers, more than 20,000 of whom have been productively deployed to that economy from 2004 to 2008, while the opportunities, notwithstanding

the global financial crisis, continue," Roque said.