A single health vision binds 4 towns

FOR FIVE straight days in February 2009, Mayor Allandatu Angas of Sultan sa Barongis (SSB) town in Maguindanao, his municipal planning and development coordinator (MPDC) Debualeg Utto, and public health nurse Aisha Amba talked about health and nothing else.

“Imagine five days. It was the first time we talked about health for five days,” Amba said.

No, their town was not facing a pandemic nor was it under a state of calamity. They were, like the local government and health leaders of eight other poor towns, attending their very first Health Leaders for the Poor program given by the Zuellig Family Foundation (ZFF) as part of its Community Health Partnership Program.

After the training, Sultan sa Barongis’ health plans and programs had more cohesion. Aside from having the opportunity to regularly communicate with each other, the three worked together to get their whole community involved.

Health summit

The “Community Health Summit” gathered the town’s different stakeholders in health—educators, religious leaders, farmers, fisherfolk, mothers and other government officials.

Their success was manifested in the improved health indicators of SSB. From 39 cases of tuberculosis in 2008, the number was down to 22 in 2010. There was one case of maternal death in 2008 but no death has been recorded since 2009.

With a predominantly Muslim population steeped in traditional beliefs that sometimes ran counter to good health practices, SSB’s 3.11-percent deliveries in health facilities in 2010 is already a marked improvement from almost zero the year before.

Transformations

It helped significantly that they got respected religious health leaders to spread the word about good health practices.

The good news is not just contained in SSB. Three other towns—Datu Paglas, Gen. S.K. Pendatun (GSKP) and Paglat—in Maguindanao experienced the same transformation since their partnership with the ZFF officially started in 2008.

Datu Paglas health officer Dr. Agustina Almirante said health was not really a priority in her municipality. She admitted that she herself lacked the initiative to take concrete steps to address the health issues, and simply carried out whatever the provincial health office ordered.

That attitude changed after the training and the good thing she has is a pro-active mayor in Mohamad Paglas. Though he acknowledged that health was not his top priority, Paglas knew something had to be done to ensure the good health of his municipality.

Quick responses

When they held their Community Health Summit, the mayor was there to personally address the issues raised by the participants.

Among these was the lack of benefits for the barangay health workers, so the mayor immediately ordered the provision of P500 a month for each worker.

In Paglat, immediately after the first training, Mayor Abdulkarim Langkuno had an ambulance purchased.

Public health nurse Farrah Salik was very grateful for this because they used to simply flag down any motor vehicle to ferry a patient to the hospital. Now, she gets to accompany the patients and facilitate the proper referral system.

In GSKP, the three people who attended the training—Mayor Boniao Kali, MPDC Abraham Masukat and municipal health officer Dr. Renalyn Masukat—introduced the Bridging Leadership framework they learned to the community.

For Masukat, it was necessary to teach Bridging Leadership because it called for the participation of various stakeholders to own the issue and together work for solutions and improvements.

“It is a must that not only one person is doing the work, the whole community must be involved,” he stressed.

People’s rule

So involved is the community that when problems arose in the construction of the second ZFF-funded health center in their town due to inundated roads leading to the site, people took it upon themselves to solve the problem. They carried the materials themselves, sometimes using their carabaos and whatever else they had just to make sure the construction continued.

Community involvement spelled the success of the four municipal health programs.

Awareness of health programs improved health-seeking behavior of their constituents. It became easier to convince people to look after their own health. And leaders saw health in a better light. It apparently made for good politics.

“Good health, good wealth, good politics ang health. Everything is there. A physically healthy person has a healthy mind, and anything is possible,” Mayor Langkuno said.

More funds

In giving priority to health, the local governments had to make corresponding increases in their health budgets.

Paglat’s health allocation from its internal revenue allotment increased from 5 percent in 2009 to 10 percent in 2010. Datu Paglas’ budget rose to P1.11 million in 2010 from P700,000 the year before. The budget in 2011 is P1.53 million.

Investments were also made to enroll indigent families in the Philiippine Health Insurance Corp. Datu Paglas has 7,250 enrollees, while GSKP and SSB have 1,700 and 3,725, respectively.

The better health situation in their municipalities was manifested in improved statistics. No maternal death has been recorded since 2008 in Datu Paglas.

Cases of tuberculosis decreased in 2010 compared to 2009: 37 from 62 in Datu Paglas, 49 from 64 in GSKP, 9 from 10 in Paglat, and 22 from 30 in SSB.

On top of these better statistics is the 2010 Galing Pook Award that the four towns got specifically for their health programs for the poor.

Maricar Tolosa is a communications associate of the Zuellig Family Foundation.