Introducing Tawi-Tawi, Sulu folk to healthcare

Health services know no boundaries Workers brought together by a Department of Health (DOH) campaign to bring medical services to the people of Tawi-Tawi sweltered in 36-degree-Celsius heat, endured hours of sea travel, ignored threats of kidnapping to attend to people who have not seen a doctor all their lives.

The campaign had been successful last year, bringing medical and dental care to the people of Mapun and Turtle Islands in Tawi-Tawi, two of the remotest places in the country.

Last month, the health caravan spent five days bringing services to people in the towns of Languyan and Sapa-Sapa where diseases have been left untreated and ailments are often blamed on supernatural causes.

Never mind if the campaign name smacks of politicking (“Alay ni RG-Kasama Mo Si Sec,” which translates to Alay ni Regional Governor-Kasama Mo Si Secretary), it was able to bring surgeries, dental work and lessons on safe motherhood and reproduction to areas where doctors have never been known to exist.

The campaign also brought essential information on health, maternal and child care, nutrition, reproduction and birth spacing.

It was merged with the DOH’s “Lakbay Buhay Kalusugan” (Journey to Health) that the department has been bringing to remote communities with barely any access to health clinics much less hospitals.

The blind can see

“Ignorance in health is not bliss, it kills,” said Kadil Sinolinding Jr., health secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

While using what sounds like a self-serving theme “Sa Biyaheng Kalusugan Kasama Mo Si Sec” obviously referring to Sinolinding, the medical mission was able to bring together health workers and volunteers who helped the people of Tawi-Tawi realize that healthcare is not a guessing game.

As a result, more than 1,000 people received free cataract and other eye surgeries in Languyan town alone. At least 25 people who have been rendered blind by cataracts were able to see clearly again. Some of the people had minor surgeries and received free dental and medical services.

From Languyan, the DOH-ARMM continued the campaign to Sapa-Sapa, reached by boat after a six-hour journey, where free cataract and other eye surgeries were given to the poor, restoring eyesight to many who had gone blind.

Bilateral tubal ligation and other minor surgeries were also provided as part of the project.

Risky mission

Sapa-Sapa municipality is one of the island towns of Tawi-Tawi, where people never had access to health services because of two things—they live too far from the nearest clinic and it was too dangerous for them to travel.

In the last three years, at least four health workers in Tawi-Tawi and Sulu have either been kidnapped or harmed by criminal elements.

At the latest medical mission, villagers from far-flung island communities took pump boats to reach the town center to avail themselves of health-care services—antenatal care, child healthcare, vitamin A supplements and immunization.

The campaign also seized the opportunity to provide information on healthcare through exhibits, classes, songs, dances and story-telling sessions that were found entertaining by the people whose communities are not reached by cable TV or regular radio broadcasts.

DOH launched its Lakbay Buhay Kalusugan simultaneously with the medical mission in Sapa-Sapa.

“I cannot allow myself to just sit and wait when I know that there are a lot of blind people out there who survive in darkness and misery, and mothers and children die needlessly just because they are poor,” said Sinolinding.

“Poverty is already social injustice, making people hopeless. Inaction aggravates their condition,” he said. Sinolinding is one of two members of the ARMM Cabinet who had been retained by acting ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman when he assumed office in December 2011.

Sinolinding thanked the people who shared their time and effort for the medical mission.

Before the Tawi-Tawi mission, ARMM health workers had brought similar services to Sumisip, Basilan, with more than 200 people receiving cataract and glaucoma surgeries. Surgeries were held at Sumisip District Hospital which, after 13 years of being nonfunctional, was revived by Sinolinding in September last year.

Sinolinding said he was so elated seeing people very grateful for the services.

“From the cries of hopelessness and injustices to jubilation and enlightenment, and from eyes and hearts laden with apathy and ignorance to eyes filled with hope and understanding—such could be the transformation now in the people of ARMM,” Sinolinding said.

“Taken for granted, our mothers and children were dying unnecessarily because of poor health service deliveries,” he added.

The Journey to Health success has led to the commitment of DOH-ARMM to bring its health caravan to the farthest islands of Muslim Mindanao, to include the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Sulu.

“No one can imagine how satisfied these poor people were after the mission,” Sinolinding, an eye doctor, said.