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Showing posts from March, 2009

Monday Madness

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Tomorrow is Monday Madness, a very hectic Monday. Before going to Candoni tomorrow, I will be having my Philhealth accreditation for professionals application form notarized before I hand them to my PHM to be submitted to Philhealth together with our application for MCP. That will be my "last" contribution to Candoni's Main Health Center. Our target is, by the month of May or June, our facility will already be Maternity-Care-Package Accredited by Philhealth. We are now already OPB and TB DOTS accredited. Our target is to upgrade our birthing facility. Our new delivery table has just arrived together with our bassinet. Our newborn screening program is on the move. We have used up all of our NBS filter cards already and right now we are about to purchase our second batch of filter cards. By being Philhealth accredited, we can somehow provide some financial buffer for the expenses of the Main Health Center. Through the capitation fund provided by Philhealth, we can purchase ...

Lights Out For Mother Earth

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Turning the lights off during the Earth Hour is symbolical in two ways. One, it means saying no to wastage of energy, saying no to wanton use of power, utilizing it without sense of responsibility. At the same time, turning the lights off would also mean a reminder that time is running out for everyone of us. If we don't stop the trend of global warming, it could literally mean lights out for all of us living on Planet Earth. And we don't need to be an activist/environmentalist to understand this. Every earthling must bear in mind that we live in a global home called Earth and we suffer the consequences of our actions, both the benign and the harmful. The world is not a dead planet that spins around the Sun once every 365 days. It is a breathing planet, a living planet, made possible by that Divine spark since the beginning of Creation, preserved by the actions of people mandated to be stewards of this spark of life. Thus, my family voted YES for earth and when the clock struck...

My Son The Graduate

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He has hurdled his pre-school and now he is ready to step into the world of formal schooling and start his elementary years. My son just had their "moving up" ceremonies at the Sisters of the Rural Mission Kindergarten School this afternoon. Actually we just arrived from the ceremonies. Which means, I actually skipped the first day of the Third Module of the Rationalization Plan of the Province of Negros Occidental at Mambukal. I sent word that I could not attend the first day of the planning because I had to help at home prepare for the afternoon ceremonies. My son graduated at the top of his class. He is the Prep's First Honor student and was also able to garner other special citations such as Loyalty Award, Best in English, Best in Reading, Best in Spelling and Best in Math. He also received other non-academic awards such as Most Diligent, Most Cooperative and Most Polite. My wife and I were there to hand him his medals and certificates. We are so proud of our son. He ...

Mandles: Candles For Men

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A Gift suggestion for your guy This is perhaps one of the funniest videos I have seen in youtube. Post Classified Ads That Produce Results

That's More Like It

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I received news this morning from my Public Health Manager that two of my Night Emergency Clinic staff have been appointed as one of the casual/regular employees for the year. I was told that Manang Lyne was already preparing her appointment papers since this morning. According to my PHM, she was approached last sunday by Nong Ferdinand, adviser to the Mayor on Barangay Affairs, and was told that she was recommended to be one of those "promoted" to casual status. Manang Lyne is one of my Job Order midwives. The second personnel to fill in the other spot has yet to be identified but most probably it would go to one of my nurses, Janet. I am thankful that at least they were able to squeeze in two of my personnel into the short list of job orders eligible for promotion to casual status. In fact, last week while I was in Iloilo attending the 50th anniversary of the CHD-6, I sent a text message to Mayor Borromeo and to SB Dolores Tomol, chairperson for the committee on health. The...

Plans for April 2009

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March is about to end and as early as now, I am already looking forward to April. March is a hectic month and although we did not have any big advocacy activity like what we had during the heart month (February), it is nonetheless a productive month. The big focus for March is actually the promotion of our Newborn Screening Program. Last February 25, 2009, we officially received our first set of Newborn Screening kits and we were able to send our first samples during the same week. I was worried at first considering that the Newborn Screening Program is dependent on the patient's capacity to pay the 600 pesos for the filter cards and since most of the people in Candoni are poor, I was not sure if the program would move forward. So, the strategy was really to enforce among the midwives the importance of Newborn Screening. Everyone believed in the program, thus it was easy to "sell" the program to the community because the promoters themselves believe in the program. Implem...

Pink Birthday Party

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This is a late post . During my daughter's 2nd birthday, we decided to hold a party for her in our house instead, inviting only a few close friends and family. It was more of an intimate children's party. We decided that for this year, it is going to be her older brother's year so we saved the money for October and decided to prepare all the food for my baby's birthday instead of hiring a caterer. So, everything from the birthday cakes to my spaghetti (naks!) were homemade. We spent the early morning preparing the place, decorating with balloons and pink crepe papers. I also fetched the tables and chairs we rented. I was tempted to hire a party clown but I decided not to and spend the money on more food instead. Besides, I planned to handle the games myself. Actually we only had two games. The party was really focused on how to finish up the food we prepared. At around 3:30 p.m., friends and guests were already arriving. My son's classmates and their parents and tea...

Golden Moment

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Yesterday, I went to Iloilo to attend the CHD Region 6's 50th Anniversary. It was actually a one-week celebration but we DTTB's were already invited to attend the final 2 days of the week-long activity. So, I reported to Iloilo on Thursday and was able to meet up with my fellow DTTB's Cel and Tep, together with our PHM's and Midwife to the Barrio. It was a mini-reunion for us Region 6 DTTB's, sort of a pre-CME get-together. The original plan was actually to stay in Iloilo until Saturday morning but I decided to return to Bacolod Thursday afternoon so I could spend more time with my family here in Bacolod. Early morning of Friday, I went back to Iloilo. The 50th Anniversary Dinner started at around 5 pm already and it was a formal gathering of doctors, nurses, midwives and non-health professional partners of the Department of Health. The guest of honor was the Secretary of the Department of Justice, Sec. Gonzales, son of Iloilo City. I was hoping I could get a pictur...

Catharsis

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I still cannot get over the "Bad News" I received yesterday (see yesterday's blog). I still cannot imagine how for two years, the health staff have been bypassed from the annual appointment for casual employees. I am definitely frustrated. I have never stopped verbalizing for and in behalf of the job order nurses and midwives of the Municipality of Candoni. Currently, I have 14 job orders: 7 of them are midwives, 2 are nurses, 1 is a driver, 1 is a clerk, 2 are utility personnel, 1 is a health attendant. Most of them are actually manning the Night Emergency Clinic. What is a Night Emergency Clinic? In the town of Candoni, the previous administration has implemented a policy that would cater to emergency cases encountered after office hours. Which means, after 5 pm, there is a team of job order midwives and nurses who would run the so-called Night Emergency Clinic which is supposed to cater only to emergency cases (accidents, traumas, complicated pregnancies, respiratory d...

Mixed Emotions

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I went to work this week in Candoni only to have myself immersed in a mixed bag of emotions. There have been a lot of good news and bad news. Let's start with the good news. GOOD NEWS: As of March 17, 2009, Candoni Rural Health Unit is now PHILHEALTH Accredited! For the first time in the history of Candoni, the Main health Center's Outpatient Benefit Package and TB DOTS center are now PHILHEALTH Accredited. Our Maternity Care Package is yet to be accredited because I still have to apply for Philhealth accreditation as a physician. Our target is by April. Besides, Philhealth representatives would still need to conduct a site visit prior to the accreditation of the MCP component. So, we are now 2 out of 3. Hopefully by the end of the first half of the year, we are now accredited in all 3 components. ANOTHER "GOOD" NEWS: I was informed by my Midwife NBS coordinator that the first batch of results have already arrived, so we decided to pick it up at LBC Kabankalan. Accord...

The Curse of the Friday the 13th

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The curse of the Friday the 13th did come exactly on the stroke of midnight. I was doing some overtime on my laptop last Thursday and I was trying to finish some work when around quarter to 12, my laptop showed signs of "weirdness". Scanning the disk with an antivirus only proved it to be fatal. There were viruses(!) in my laptop and there were many of them. I didn't have a stronger antivirus during that time. I did try to install a Norton Antivirus 2009 only to find out that it was all too late. By 12 midnight, I could no longer log in to my laptop. It displayed more of its "weirdness", to the point that it was almost "possessed". At around 1:30 a.m., Friday the 13th, it breathed its last. There was really no choice but to have the entire disk reformatted, suspecting that the OS was already corrupted. The tragic thing was, I failed to make back-ups for my latest files. Although I have some old files left in my USB, they were not enough. Some of my mor...

Re-play of Yesterday's Party

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Replay of the party courtesy of ustream.tv More pictures to be posted once I get my groove back. Post Classified Ads That Produce Results