Friday, December 16, 2016
RxBox: Advancing Community Health Care
WHAT IS RxBOX?
RxBox is a multi-component program (biomedical device, electronic medical record system and telemedicine training) designed to provide better access to life-saving health care services in isolated and disadvantaged communities nationwide. It is one among the Department of Science and Technology’s efforts for a “Smarter Philippines”. It is also an ICT (Information and Communications Technology) innovation designed to support the Department of Health’s call for Kalusugang Pangakalahatan or Universal Health Care.
What can RxBox do?
The RxBox is a telemedicine device capable of capturing medical signals through built-in medical sensors, storing data in an electronic medical record (Community Health Information Tracking System –CHITS), and transmitting health information via internet to a clinical specialist in the Philippine General Hospital for expert advice.
It also catalyzes improvement in the local referral system by facilitating teleconsultations (audio-video conferences) within the National Telehealth Service Program.
The RxBox can reduce the overall cost of healthcare by enabling health workers to diagnose, monitor and treat patients within the rural health facility, thanks to medical sensors inside the box!
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
RXBOX’S ECG SAVES COST IN MALIBCONG
ABRA — In some areas of the Philippines, patients need to travel hours through vehicles, boat, or even by walking, just in order to visit the nearest rural health unit. It would take even longer for them to reach a hospital or a higher care facility equipped for more specialized services. The sad thing is a handful of these patients spend so much in travelling to a town hours away for services that could have been available at the RHU.
One of these patients is Lino, an old man who went to their RHU in Malibcong, Abra, with complaints of chest pain. With Malibcong being one of the volunteer sites of RxBox last year, their health workers used the ECG component of the RxBox on Lino. The result was normal. Lino was very grateful since he was reassured that he didn’t have any cardiac complications. He didn’t have to travel to Bangued, which is 5 hours away from Malibcong, which could have cost him 180 pesos for the transportation fare. Additionally, he didn’t have so spend 400 pesos for ECG services since their RHU’s RxBox provided immediate diagnosis for free.
Source: https://rxbox.chits.ph/
Friday, December 9, 2016
Cañao: Heart of the Cordilleran Culture
Cañao, familiar to the lowland culture as the a community celebration of the
Igorots, is a ritual of animal sacrifice, feasting and dancing performed
for healing, thanksgiving, entertainment and for asking for a bountiful
harvest. It is usually performed during native feasts or celebrations in the
highlands of the Cordilleras–in the Luzon area of the Philippines. It is a ritual common to the Ibaloys, Kankana-eys, and Kalanguyas.
The gangsa and the solibao played together would
usually resound to the next village, signifying a festivity. Amid the
floating music of these instruments, you’d hear someone belt out a
chant, which would be responded to by a chorus of outcries from the
people. This would go on for minutes until, at such time, the people
dancing and beating on the gangsas and solibaos get tired. Amazingly,
another round would follow a little later, indicating that the people
have energized and are up to dancing once again.
Though cañao
is slowly fading because some Cordillerans have finally embraced the
Christian faith, it is still practiced in occasions such as marriage,
feast, and death.
C A Ñ A O | 2 0 1 6
*Original photos of Jake S. Olsim
taken during the Cordillera Day Celebration, July 15, 2016
Baguio City Thursday, December 8, 2016
FEATURE: Inayud, battling the desolate state of health services
TINOC, IFUGAO — In a far-flung village of this town, a mother cries for help as she is expecting her water bag to break any hour in the evening. Her women neighbors call for the able bodied men to prepare the ayud or the hammock made of blanket fastened to sturdy wood or bamboo. They will transport the mother by way of the hammock to the barangay health station. Women in the village gather at the health station to accompany the mother in labor. Throughout the labor hours, women rotate shifts as they ensure that the mother about to deliver is not left alone. This has been a practice among the Kalanguya in this particular village for quite a long time.
BULIG SYSTEM. Amid the strict implementation of the No Home Birthing policy, villagers in Ahin, Tinoc, Ifugao still transport their patients through a bulig system. Photo by Alma B. Sinumlag
As soon as the patient was brought to the health station, the midwife assisted her. In a few hours towards dusk, her water bag broke. The morning came and she has not given birth yet. Her neighbors started to worry. Afternoon came and still, she has not delivered the baby yet. They began to worry that the baby might suffocate as the water bag has broken hours ago. At night, they again prepared the hammock to transport the patient to the nearest District Hospital. At midnight, men carried the patient up the mountain to where they can hire any transport vehicle to bring the laboring expectant mother to Poblacion, Tinoc.
According to the villagers, this has been the state of health since they were born. They have a health station but it is just a structure. Medicines and essential equipment are either scarce or none. For cases of emergency, they rely on each other to save their patient. One of their remedies is the inayud, a practice that is serves as an ambulance. Always, their waterloo is the travel time. Villagers shared that there had been several times when patients die while they are carried up the main road.
“Matay a nga talaga ti pasyente iti dalan,” (patients would die along the way) a villager lamented.
Adding to their battle with time using the hammock ambulance is hiring a transport vehicle. Once they reach the main road, they have to double-time looking for any transport to the district hospital because most of the time, the municipal ambulance is not available.
As they reach the district hospital, they are not even sure if their patient is in good hands. Testimonies would reveal that most cases aside from upper respiratory tract infection, common colds and diarrhea are referred to a higher facility. After the district hospital applies the necessary first aid (which is not done at all times), the patient is referred to the Ifugao Provincial Hospital. However, the supposedly highest medical facility in the province is now a “hospital no more” as some of the informants put it.
For several years already, the provincial hospital which is located in Lagawe is only operating as an out-patient facility as its license has been cancelled by the Department of Health for some reasons. The medical complex that started to be constructed during the last administration has been halted for many complex reasons. As a result, patients from all over the province which are referred to higher facility swarm the Panopdopan District Hospital in the municipality of Lamut. Patients would always complain of the low quality of health service and of being crowded that even the hallways are occupied.
Because the district hospital cannot already accommodate so many patients, they would usually refer them to the nearest province which is in Nueva Viscaya. Veterans Regional Hospital (VRH) located in Bayombong, Nueva Viscaya is the highest health facility that is nearest to Ifugao. In that hospital, the people of Ifugao usually face another illness which is discrimination. Experiences of those who had been admitted to VRH would tell that if patients are from Ifugao, they would be treated as lesser priority.
Some of the beneficiaries of health service told this writer that aside from patients dying due to the battle against time during the transportation from their village to the nearest District Hospital, the Ifugao patients also die because of the “referral state of health.” The poor Ifugaos are usually the victims of this “referral state of health” because the well-to-do patients can go directly to private hospitals where they are attended immediately.
Today, the Kalanguya people of Tinoc shared that instead of suffering the health referral process in their province, most of them would prefer going straight to Abatan, Buguias, Benguet. The situation they added is worse without their self-help remedies like the inayud.
Source: http://www.nordis.net/2016/02/inayud-battling-the-desolate-state-of-health-services/
Sunday, December 4, 2016
IKSP as agenda of Research
Saturday, December 3, 2016
The Legendary Ones
This is a portrait of an elderly woman at the Botanical Garden of Baguio City. She represents a resilient group of Filipinos from the mountain regions of Luzon who are exemplary for being hardworking. Their cultural contributions to the country are legendary and can in no way be undermined.
#proudcordilleran
#jakeolsimphotography
