Want to share a story about how a simple act can lead to a big change in the lives of others. Just this morning, I went to Cabiao, Nueva Ecija to open our first public elementary school library for this year. During the event, the Municipal Health Officer was there and he went up to me to thank me for the Pneumococcal (Anti-Pneumonia) Vaccines that we were able to help them access through a partnership between our Institute for Governance and Strategic Partnerships - IGSP and the Department of Health (DoH). He told me that the indigent senior citizens were so happy because one of the leading causes of death among our elderly has always been pneumonia. More importantly, he was very happy because he told me that if senior citizens would go to private hospitals and clinics for their vaccination, it would easily cost them between P 3,000 to P 5,000. A poor family of farmers earning less than P 200 a day would not be able to afford that thus, many of them would just suffer silently as they watch their lolo or lola die due to pneumonia. I am sharing this story because the only thing that we did was basically help link our partner local government units with the DoH and because of this linkage, we have now been able to provide Pneumococcal Vaccines to more than 10,000 indigent senior citizens all over the country. A simple act that has led to a big change for many of our fellow Filipinos :) My main learning here is that we are now in the age of collaboration rather than competition. The more we learn to collaborate, work with each other and utilize each others strengths, the more we are able to create bigger impact in the lives of others. Special thanks should go to DoH Usec. Ted Herbosa and Dr. Mai Rostrata of DoH Region 3 who is one of our active partners in this project as well as our two angels who have been working to make this project a success, Tricia Robredo and Sheena Valenzuela :) Basta pag nagtutulungan ang bawat isa, Kaya Natin!
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 06:00:01 +0000