A public nurse’s advocacy towards holistic development
“Ate Am, anong ginagawa mo dito,” happily shouts Maritess Ornalea upon seeing Nurse Amalia De Villa in a neighbor’s house.
The next scenario is an exchange of laughter, consultations on health and usual chats about life—a scenario typical of friends who have not seen each other for a while.
Ornalea, a resident of Brgy. Banyaga in the town of Agoncillo, Batangas Province, has known Nurse De Villa (who she fondly calls Ate Am) through their regular checkups as a beneficiary of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.
De Villa is the designated focal person of the Rural Health Unit of the municipality for the Pantawid Pamilya program since 2016.
As a program partner of the Pantawid Pamilya, her role includes ensuring the availability of health services for the beneficiaries and monitoring the compliance of beneficiaries to the condition on health of the program.
However, De Villa is not contented on simply doing what’s written on paper. She makes efforts to improve their services, such as establishing new systems in the office, for the beneficiaries of the program.
What she treasures more, however, is the relationship she has established among beneficiaries like Ornalea. For De Villa, it is important that the beneficiaries trust her and their office so they can help them better.
Bringing health services to the barangays
In the implementation of the Pantawid Pamilya program, household-beneficiaries with zero to five years old children and pregnant women are required to avail monthly preventive health checkups, weight monitoring and immunization from partner-health facilities prior to receiving a subsidy on health amounting to PhP500 per household per month.
This conditionality on health ensures that children are healthy and that parents invest on the health and nutrition of their children.
Since the start of the program in the town in 2012, all household-beneficiaries from the 21 barangays have been availing this service at the rural health unit, which is located in the town proper.
“Noon, talagang kailangan naming pumunta sa bayan para makapagpa-checkup. Mahirap dahil kailangan pang mamasahe, kaya ‘yung iba, ang hirap na ring piliting pumunta,” related Laureana Catibog, a Pantawid Pamilya beneficiary and a former parent leader in Brgy. Banyaga, one of the farthest barangays in the municipality.
Seeing this concern of the beneficiaries, De Villa pushed towards making the practice the other way around.
“Ngayon, kami na ang bumababa tuwing may schedule ng checkup para sa mga benepisyaryo ng Pantawid,” shared De Villa, who added that it is safer and more convenient for a few people from the center to go to the barangays than let all the beneficiaries travel to the town proper. After all, her goal is bringing the health services closer to the people.
Cornelio Nohay, Jr., the municipal link assigned in Agoncillo, Batangas, acknowledges this effort of the rural health unit.
“Sobrang laki ng itinaas ng compliance rate ng mga beneficiaries pagdating sa monthly health checkups. Noon, nasa 70 percent lang ang compliance rate pero ngayon, 97 to 100 percent na,” Nohay said.
For the DSWD, the increase in the compliance rate of beneficiaries means the achievement of the goals of the program in terms of improving the health of young children and mothers.
Changing the perception of the people on health, other things
When it comes to health services for Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries, De Villa is not simply concerned about the compliance of the beneficiaries to the conditions of the program.
“Mahalaga din ‘yung disiplina ng mga tao at ‘yung pagbabago ng kanilang pananaw tungkol sa kalusugan,” she shared.
Regina Enriquez, a Pantawid Pamilya beneficiary and also a barangay health worker (BHW) from Brgy. Bilibinwang, said that De Villa and her team would often conduct health lectures during their scheduled checkups for beneficiaries. Topics she remembered being taught are about family planning and measles.
“Nagtatanong ako sa kanila kung anong topic ang gusto nilang pag-usapan namin sa mga susunod na buwan,” said De Villa.
Other than health lectures, De Villa tries to inject other topics in her discussions such as setting family goals, budgeting and caring for the environment among others.
To encourage the beneficiaries to listen and stay for her lectures, she oftentimes gives activities such as bead making and coloring for children, even if these activities mean shelling out personal money. She would also coordinate with the municipal agriculture office so she can bring seedlings to the barangays.
“Nacha-challenge din ako sa mga nagsasabi dito na ‘kahit anong health teaching ang gawin namin, walang mangyayari.’ Ang sa amin, hindi madali ang proseso pero paunti-unti, mayroon itong epekto sa mga tao,” she shared with conviction.
Enriquez agrees that little by little, she sees the change in attitude of the residents in their barangay when it comes to health.
“Sa 15 taon kong pagiging BHW, nakita ko na ang mga tao ay nagbibigay na ng halaga para sa kalusugan. Prayoridad na nila ang pagpapacheckup, pagpapabakuna at pagbili ng gamot at vitamins,” Enriquez said.
Gaining people’s confidence in their services
De Villa is not just a nurse for the beneficiaries as she makes sure that she establishes a good relationship with them.
“Mahalaga na ‘yung mga tao, nagtitiwala rin sa akin. Kung hindi sila nagtitiwala, hindi rin sila makikinig o maniniwala sa akin,” shared De Villa.
Whenever she visits the barangay, she allots time to talk to them about almost everything. According to her, this is her way of knowing them better and understanding their attitude so that she can think of the most appropriate ways to provide services to them.
“Isang text lang namin kay Ate Am, sumasagot agad. Nagtatanong kami ng tungkol sa sakit o kaya humihingi ng gamot sa center,” shared Ornalea.
Her building good relations is not only limited to the program-beneficiaries. She also establishes a good working relationship with other agencies within the municipality.
“Madali s’yang kausap at nakikita namin ang interes n’yang makatulong lalo na sa beneficiaries ng Pantawid. Kapag may mga activities sila tulad ng medical mission, s’ya pa ang pumupunta sa aming opisina para mainform kaagad at maka-avail ang mga beneficiaries,” shared Nohay.
De Villa has also established partnership with the secondary schools in the municipality where they teach teenage pregnancy and career guidance.
With her three years as a focal person for the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, De Villa still thinks that she has not done much. However, the acknowledgements given by the partners and, most especially, by the beneficiaries on her initiatives to help improve the health conditions of the residents, are enough proof that she is off to a good start and definitely off to positive results.#