MENS SANA in corpore sano.
The Greek ideal of sound mind in a sound body makes the holistic approach to the health program vigorously pursued by the provincial government of Pampanga under Gov. Lilia G. Pineda.
The governor has undertaken the rehabilitation, re-manning, re-equipping, and restocking of all the district hospitals as well as the Diosdado Macapagal Provincial Hospital to make them more responsive to the needs of the Kapampangans.
She has likewise enlisted the services of medical specialists to take on health cases requiring, well, specialization – heart, kidney, liver and some such other “high level” ailments which treatment she readily made accessible even to the poorest of the poor.
The most endearing “Nanay” in the governor found manifest in the provisions of birthing stations in the district hospitals and health centers and the strengthening of maternal and child care.
The province’s child nutrition program is not only highly regarded but well awarded for its efficiency and efficacy.
A watershed in the Pineda administration is the establishment of a dialysis center at the DMPH, providing affordable treatment otherwise beyond the reach of the ordinary folk.
On-stream now is the provision of dialysis machines in each of the ten district hospitals.
The “relatively high” incidence of tuberculosis and the “so-so” percent of tuberculosis case detection rate and tuberculosis cure rate have so riled up the governor that she called for a health summit and immediately ordered the hiring of additional 200 nurses to be assigned in all districts in the province specifically to address the TB problem.
To hit more ground in the anti-TB campaign, she likewise ordered that the barangay health workers in all of Pampanga’s over 500 villages be trained in sputum collection to quickly identify Kapampangans with early symptoms of tuberculosis.
The governor has instituted the health caravans to far-flung barangays, serving those who have least access to hospital care. It was in these medical missions that the governor saw yet another concern to be addressed – mental health.
Not that Pampanga makes a basket case of mental illness. But that the mother in the governor holds the greatest compassion to the last, the lost and the least among her constituents.
Even to non-constituents, some urban areas in the province, notably the City of San Fernando, long known as a dumping ground for the mentally disabled.
Pampanga is the first – and still the only – local government unit in the country to ever provide free psychiatric consultations, medication and out-patient treatment to the mentally challenged.
In acute cases, the patients are hospitalized – at the expense of the governor – at the St. Claire Psychiatric Homecare, a private clinic.
Started in October 2010 yet, the province’s mental health program averages 84 patients per month, with a total of 1,009 patients in its first 12 months.
Very minimal and manageable for now, the mental cases are expected to rise, not only in Pampanga but nationwide, starting May next year – some defeated candidates swelling the ranks of the mental cases.
Pampanga though – with its mental health program – is well prepared for them.
