MEDIUM RARE
Jullie Y. Daza
Our health care system has long been a patient lying in wait for a doctor with an Rx for a cheap instant cure. With shortages left and right, forever and ever, of nurses (at present count, 106,000, compared to the six million needed by the world), doctors (67,000), and med techs, pharmacists, lab assistants, etc. in the thousands more. Not to mention a lack of clinics, hospitals, hospices. And not only in the NCR but also throughout the islands and unreachable hamlets.
Remember what the smiling Dr. Johnny Flavier said when he became a senator? “Bawal magkasakit” – you’re not allowed to get sick. Health is wealth, or put another way, medical care can be costly.
Name one government agency that has taken care of children by snatching them from the jaws of death – and doing so without a budget – for the last 20 years.
The children of Child Haus are blessed because they have “Mader” Ricky Reyes, who was not born to be a mother but whose devotion to his mother led him to catch sick children by giving them a temporary home while they undergo treatment at Philippine General Hospital. The children’s ward of PGH, after all, is the cradle of Child Haus, where it was conceived.
Child Haus is not a hospital, it’s a dormitory in Manila and Quezon City for children who reside outside Metro Manila. Mader’s friends, again for the last 20 years, have been donating food, cooking oil, sugar, salt, flour, soap, drinking water, fuel, cash to keep the mission going, without skipping a beat. The mothers clean and wash. Nurses are on duty 24/7 and a doctor is a phone call away.
Tomorrow, donors and sponsors will toast the “veterans” of Child Haus at a party at SM MOA. The extremely low mortality rate is reason to celebrate, the high survivor rate is a reward without equal in human terms and words.
My wish is for Child Haus to inspire a sisterhood of comfort-and-care facilities, this time for adults and the elderly, such as nursing homes, respite care, palliative care. We need hospitals, sure, but if VP Sara Duterte could give Davao City a palliative care center that impressed the unshakable Rep. Joey Salceda, why not build more, more?