DAVAO CITY—The government of Davao del Norte’s urban capital has urged pregnant women to access government-operated birthing facilities and avail themselves of their services as the city claims doing so ensures better health care and early infant care of newborns.
The appeal was made following the declining number of people availing themselves of these birthing facilities as indicating an increasing preference for home deliveries by midwives or unlicensed child-birth attendants, whom locals called hilot.
The call was echoed by officials of the Department of Health (DOH) and the City Health Office of Tagum City who attended the inauguration of the safe birthing facility in Barangay Apokon, the third to be erected in the city. Two other facilities were already operating in Barangays San Miguel and La Filipina, respectively.
Mayor Allan L. Rellon has also ordered the City Health Office to let barangay health workers spread out into their areas and ask women residents to avail themselves of the pre- and postnatal care services in the city’s health centers and to use the birthing facilities.
He would also adapt the clustering of barangays into seven districts to be effective in “cascading the delivery of basic services in the grassroots, including health services.”
Rellon said the city’s core group of planners were finalizing the feasibility study to devise strategies to effectively roll out the clustering plan.
Maria Corazon S. Mendez, chief of the DOH development management office, supported Rellon’s call after noting the declining number of pregnant women using the birthing facilities. Mendez, however, didn’t cite figures.
These facilities are run by three midwives and nurses paid by the local government, while some of the equipment stationed in the area were donated by the World Health Organization.
In the Sarangani town of Malungon, meanwhile, the local government opened its own halfway house and reformation center for those seeking rehabilitation from addiction to illegal drugs.
As it opened on May 22, it already has 200 beneficiaries. The reformation center is officially called “Balay Silangan Reformation Program of Malungon Outpatient Reformatory and Treatment Center for Drug Dependents.”