DepEd to hold activities on health maintenance

Centered on the theme "Better Health Care for Empowered Learning", the Department of Education will be initiating activities relative to the National Schools Health Maintenance Drive in the elementary level next month.

The activities will be undertaken to "underscore the need to promote good health and nutrition among children in order for them to fully participate in education and gain its maximum benefits."

The Universal Medical and Dental Check-up of preschoolers and Grades I-III pupils in public elementary schools is currently being undertaken by the school health and nutrition personnel and volunteer health professionals who are affiliated with medical associations and organizations nationwide.

The National Schools Health Maintenance Drive, which will take off on the second week of May and will end on July 31, aims to establish data on the health and nutrition status of schoolchildren to serve as bases for the planning of the school feeding and provision of appropriate health interventions; as well as to mobilize other health service providers to ensure the examination of preschoolers and Grades I-III pupils in public elementary schools.

Likewise, the drive aims to enlist local medical practitioners and community support as partners for the UMDC of pupils; to empower the school heads and teachers to develop the schools as health-promoting institutions; and lastly, advocate the need for parental participation in establishing good health among young children in schools.

The school health personnel are likewise involved in the "Brigada Eskwela" particularly in the upkeep of the school clinic, toilets, hand washing facilities and cleanup of the school environment. Before the UMDC was implemented in the public elementary schools, strategies were mapped out to ensure the institutionalization of a grand alliance among public and private health care providers for UMDC. An orientation was provided for school health personnel to ensure that the planned activities are effectively executed.

On their part, schools division superintendents provide administrative support like travel allowances of school health personnel and appropriate funding for supplies. The schools'' medical officers, in close coordination with the school heads, take the lead in coordination of activities in the division. - Jasmin R. Uy/MEEV