ARMM health worker to receive ‘Bayani ng Kalusugan Award 2016’

Cotabato City (June 22, 2016) – A health worker from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) will receive an award from the Department of Health (DoH) central office on Thursday, June 23, in Manila for her excellent service in her community.

Virginia Cadano, 56, a midwife from Lamitan City in Basilan, will receive the DoH ‘Bayani ng Kalusugan Award 2016’. The award, given annually, aims at recognizing individuals, groups and organizations for exemplary work, innovation and reforms towards universal health care (UHC).

Cadano has been serving as a rural health midwife in Brgy. Limo-ok Health Center for the past 29 years. She earlier served in Jolo, Sulu for six years.

Kadil Sinolinding, DoH-ARMM Secretary, said the Bayani ng Kalusugan Award is a platform that honors and celebrates excellence in work that meets the highest standards of quality and provides satisfaction to clients. “Cadano had consistently displayed such excellence,” he added.

Since her assumption as a rural health midwife in 1987, there has been no maternal and new born child death recorded in the barangay health center where she serves.

“Kapag may nanganganak sa health center na hindi namin kaya, nire-refer po namin agad sa ospital para mabigyan sila ng utmost health care (Difficult childbirth that we could not handle is referred immediately to the nearest hospital so the mother would be given utmost health care),” Cadano said.

“Marami ring mga pasyente mula sa ibang municipalities at barangays na malapit sa amin ang gustong mag-avail ng services sa amin, tinatanggap po namin dahil public birthing facility iyon (We also attend to patients from nearby municipalities and villages since this is a public birthing facility),” Cadano added.

In June 2015, the DoH-ARMM conducted the High Impact Five (HI-5) Health Summit at the Shariff Kabunsuan Cultural Complex in this city. The five critical UHC programs discussed are the following:

reduction of maternal deaths;

improvement of infant health and reduced infant deaths;

improvement of the health of children under five years old;

combating human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and malaria, as well as other diseases; and

implementation of a service delivery network in all areas of the region.

“UHC HI-5 is a strategy that focuses on five critical universal health care interventions such as prioritizing the poor, providing tangible outputs, which are felt through synchronized implementation of activities,” Sec. Sinolinding said.

Cadano will receive a cash prize of P200,000 and a trophy that “generally symbolizes the meaningful contribution of the awardee to move the country closer to attaining universal health care.”

Cadano attributes her success to the support the health center receives from the ARMM government, Lamitan City government unit, and even from the barangay government.

Various forms of assistance from the DoH-ARMM include the deployment of hundreds of registered midwives to far-flung barangays across the region through the ‘Midwives in Every Community in ARMM’ project. ARMM is composed of five provinces namely Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao. (Bureau of Public Information – Mindanao Expose)