The United Nations Children’s Fund or UNICEF has recently bewailed the fact that one million children in the Philippines “have not received a single dose of childhood vaccine, leaving them susceptible to transmission of various life-threatening vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio, measles, and tuberculosis,” as reports said.
The same statement from UNICEF also shed light on what could have led to this monstrous oversight — saying these “persistent missed opportunities” may have been caused by “past governance challenges, low demand for services, and disruptions by the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Aside from the three diseases mentioned above, Covid-19 is the most recent that poses a great risk to children’s lives. In fact, a report in February this year revealed that most kids of pediatric age who died of the coronavirus disease were unvaccinated.
The Department of Health in Central Visayas recorded 121 pediatric deaths due to Covid-19 from April 2020 to January 2022.
Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, DoH-7 regional director, said because “children are social beings”, we “need to get them back to the environment that is best suited for them, so they can be children again, play, talk, laugh, learn, and interact with fellow children.”
Now that President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has ruled that the mandatory wearing of masks indoors will be lifted, such freedom will once again be felt not just by kids but everyone who has chafed under the confines of health restrictions.
Still, because the pandemic continues to pose limitations and health risks to all, how the DoH will move forward under the helm of a new secretary remains a question that critics say has been left too long unanswered.
The recent appointment of a former police chief did not help the situation any, as an increasingly cranky populace wonders how in the world a former Philippine National Police official could possibly fulfill the functions of an undersecretary in this crucial agency.
As we all know, before the invisible virus came to disrupt our lives, the health department had already been beset with problems and perennial challenges. The pandemic uncovered many of these, including the lack of personnel (shaved off by the continued flight of Filipino professionals to greener pastures), lack of hospital facilities (we recall the first Covid-19 patients dying inside vehicles parked in hospital grounds, and lack of equipment and medical supplies.
The realm of supplies brought new opportunities for local businesses to make a profit while also addressing a need that had long bogged down our health industry.
Medical Depot, a three-decade-old medical equipment supplier in the country, was quoted, “In 2019, medicines and medical supplies in rural health centers ran out easily while the Philippine Institute of Development Studies revealed that about 75 percent of the total number of municipalities in the country have a low number of healthcare workers.”
Local businesses such as this have made an effort to contribute as corporate citizens, providing support to the government in times of crisis such as the recent Typhoon “Odette.” When most of Siargao province was flattened, for example, the company had no qualms about sending medical equipment and water filtration alongside medicines and vitamins, food, and other necessities to help locals survive the difficulties of rising from devastation.
It is no longer a surprise to hear of such concerted efforts to uplift each other in times of crisis. Those are times when everyone must pitch in with their best skill, talent, or area of expertise — and this is how the presence of one former Philippine National Police chief Camilo Cascolan in the Department of Health can best be explained.
Cascolan is credited for his management skills, and while he may not have the medical degree that some people seem to think is the primary requirement for a position in the DoH, he may be instrumental in bringing order or some managerial magic into a government agency intermittently criticized for its unwieldy leadership.
