The BHWs Welfare Center

Rationale

Barangay Health Workers do enormous task of responding to the medical needs of the community. Receiving a very minimal honorarium, BHWs are overworked. But they hardly complain.

But this observation is the case only if and when BHWs are in their familiar territory. It becomes a different thing altogether if BHWs are away, when they are “temporarily” uprooted from their territory to be with their neighbors or family members who need them most somewhere else.

Several times, the Executive Director of FDAI was approached by BHWs in the early morning to ask for help. BHWs would say that their neighbors were sick and they accompanied them to the D.O. Plaza Memorial Hospital because no one else would. The money that they had was only enough for their fare in reaching the Hospital and for medicines. Nothing was left for food and for their trip back. They would say that they had not eaten the night before and doomed to eat nothing for breakfast. They would say that they just sat in a bench the whole night because there was no more space in the room. They would wait for their Barangay Captain/Councilman to “rescue” them in their predicaments while they worried about their children left at home.

Project Description

FDAI thought of launching a Program dubbed as “Care for the Caregivers”. For the start, FDAI would open to all BHWs in the Province a Welfare Center right at the Hygeia IntegraMeds Center.

FDAI would keep a certified list of all BHWs in the Province. In the event that their family members or neighbors get hospitalized and they are the ones guarding/caring for them; they could stay at the Center for a reasonable length of time. To avail such a privilege, BHWs need only to present Admission Slip and Referral Slip to FDAI. While staying at the Center, BHWs could harvest some organic vegetables growing in the area that they could cook for themselves and for their patients.

Special consideration for BHWs who come from far-flung barangays; they could stay at the Center as transients if and when necessary.

FDAI will also endeavour to have its Partnership Agreement with Coop Life and Mutual Benefits Systems (CLIMBS) be enjoyed by the BHWs. Already, hundreds of Agusanons have been enrolled in the Group Accident, Death, Disablement & Dismemberment Insurance of CLIMBS. In particular, Community Organizers who are based at the Provincial Health Resource Center are enrolled; their premium fees are shouldered by FDAI.