500 health teams sent to Cordi towns

BAGUIO CITY – More than 500 community health teams were dispatched in different parts of the Cordillera to reach poor communities.

The CHTs are an expansion of the former barangay health teams which primarily cater to the basic needs of people in far flung communities to help the government achieve its commitment to comply with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and ensure that every Cordilleran home is a center for health.

Dr. Myrna C. Cabotaje, regional director of the Center for Health Development in the Cordillera, said the reinforced and reinvigorated CHTs will greatly help in achieving the government’s goal of providing people in the countryside with their basic health needs in order to sustain their productivity.

“We have to expand our efforts to reach the grassroots level and attend not only to their health needs but also to their possible sources of livelihood to keep them healthy and have a sustainable source of living,” she said.

Previously, the CHTs were known to be women health teams or barangay health teams that were composed mainly of women who went around the village to attend to the needs of pregnant and lactating mothers.

However, Cabotaje explained the health department saw the need to expand the composition of the CHTs to involve barangay officials and even men considering their vital role in ensuring a healthy environment for the people.

“The CHT members are now equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to teach the community people to prepare their respective health plans and to appropriately guide pregnant and lactating mothers on how to keep themselves healthy that will eventually lessen maternal and child deaths, especially in remote communities,” Cabotaje stressed.

According to her, the number of CHTs deployed in the region will surely increase in the coming months because of the continuous trainings the health department is undertaking to ensure that every poor household under the national household targeting system for poverty reduction (NHTS-PR) are periodically visited and attended by social service providers thereby ensuring the achievement of MDGs and universal health care for them.

The creation and mobilization of the “KalusuganPangkalahatan” of the Aquino administration is geared towards achieving universal health care.

The CHTs are mandated to assist in the effective implementation of the 3 “KP” strategic thrusts, particularly protecting poor families from financial risk through improved health insurance enrollment and benefit delivery to 5.2 million poorest families, including the 2.3 million PantawidPamilyang Pilipino Program beneficiaries targeted for this year; upgrading target facilities to provide quality medical and surgical services to 77 percent of the poorest families as well as developing and distributing outpatient treatment packs for hypertension, diabetes and common infections to rural health units and securing access to MDG services, specifically those related to maternal and child health and nutrition. By Dexter A. See