Barefoot doctors

Tomorrow, Sunday, February 6, at 4:00 in the afternoon, 30 tribal natives will graduate from a three-week, intensive, specialized course in basic medicine. Since January 16 they have been living, working, studying, praying together at Our Lady of Peace Hospital on the Coastal Road. They will go back to their own people as community health workers – barefoot doctors.

They were invited and given free transportation from their remote home towns to attend this unique training seminar. The course has given them the fundamental skills and knowledge they need to take care of the health of their indigenous groups, all over the country.

B’laan from Polomonok

Kongking from Southern Leyte

Talaandig from Miarayon Bukidnon

Mamanwa from Southern Leyte

Tadyawan from Mindoro

Bagobo from Davao

Sama from Zamboanga City

Kalibugan from Zamboanga del Norte

Maguindanao from Surallah and North Cotabato

Escaya from Bohol

Subanon from Zamboanga

Kankana-Ey from Baguio

Ibaloi from Baguio

Aeta from Zambales

Manobo from Cotabato

Yakan from Lamitan, Basilan

Kalagan from Sarangani Province

T’Boli from South Cotabato

Ubo, from Lake Sebu

Samal and Tausog from Siocon

Badjao from Leyte

Sister Eva Maamo, S.P.C., the president of Our Lady of Peace Mission, worked for 14 years to establish a Hospital for the Poor in Metro Manila. The primary need of the squatters in Manila is survival! They do not have money enough to go to a hospital, or to pay a doctor, or even to call a nurse. So their babies are delivered by a street vendor; the sick die in their squatter shacks; their children are hopelessly handicapped by malnutrition.

The Charity Hospital is now in operation in the City. But Sister Eva worked for years among the T’Bolis in Lake Sebu, and in the mountains of South Cotabato. And she has led surgical missions to many of the rural areas in the Philippines where the people have no access to a hospital, or to a doctor. Her vision is to build a regular training course in Our Lady of Peace Hospital – a course that will teach tribal natives, and send them back to their rural communities as barefoot doctors.

Sister Eva knows that this can be done, because she did it herself. She not only trained community health workers – she trained nurses! Some years ago the Rotary Club of Manila was giving "The Tower Awards" – awards to the "Ten Outstanding Workers" of the Philippines. One of these was a young T’Boli woman – 23 years old. She came to the Philippine International Convention Center in her beautiful native dress, complete with bells.

She had never gone to school! She could not read or write. But she was an expert scrub nurse, working with Sister Eva in a makeshift operating room. Sister Eva is a surgeon. She did her operations under a mosquito net. This T’Boli girl was her scrub. She knew all the instruments, and could give them at once to the nun. She knew all the medicines by their color, and their scent. She understood the need for sterilization, and how to achieve it. She was one of the Ten Outstanding Workers of the nation – trained by Sister Eva.

There at Lake Sebu Sister Eva also trained a strong battery of barefoot doctors. None of them had ever gone to school. None of them could read or write. But they were a blessing to the little villages where they lived.

The training course at Our Lady of Peace Hospital is the beginning of a vision – to duplicate in Metro Manila, for the whole country, what Sister Eva was able to do in Lake Sebu, for the seven mountain tribes who were within traveling distance of her clinic.

It is amazing how much this group, from indigenous communities, is learning in such a short time! How to suture an open wound; how to set a broken bone; how to diagnose the common sicknesses that mountain people have. They learn how to teach hygiene, sanitation, and nutrition. They are instructed on the human dignity and spirituality of a tribal family, on the beauty of our Filipino values, on pregnancy, pre-natal care, childbirth, post natal care, and breast feeding.

They are taught how to recognize malnutrition, how to prevent it, how to remedy it, and how to monitor the growth of children. They are introduced to the treatment of diseases of the ear, nose and throat; to gastro intestinal diseases; to tuberculosis, bronchitis and pneumonia; to skin infections and chicken pox; how to treat blood poisoning, stings and bites; and finally the positive practice of herbal medicine.

Our indigenous people – even when they have not been formally educated in a school – are wise with the wisdom of God when it comes to the preservation of life. They may not be able to read and write, but their memory is strong and their minds are alert.

Sister Eva Fidela Maamo, S.P.C., is the chief coordinator of the course. But she has assembled a teaching staff of 13 doctors – each one expert in his/her own field.

Doctor Madeleine Valera

Doctor Ricardo Salonga

Doctor Manny Dagala

Doctor Cecilia Franco

Doctor May Punzalan

Doctor Amiel Dela Cruz

Doctor Lynette Dominguez

Doctor Jeanette Silao

Doctor Rolando Baria

Doctor Kelvin Manubay

Doctor Phyllis Castor

Doctor Emy Rilloraza

Doctor Elsie Dancel

Because this training course, hopefully, will launch a new national effort to help our indigenous people, Sister Eva has invited many national leaders to their graduation on Sunday: Bishop Deogracias Yniguez, General Eduardo Ermita, Executive Secretary to the President; Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr., Ramon Revilla Sr., chairman of the Public Estates Authority; Sergio Valencia, chairman of PCSO; Ephraim Genuino, chairman of Pagcor; Dr. Manuel Dayrit, Secretary of Health; Dr. Francisco Duque, chairman of Philhealth; Florencio Bernabe, the Mayor of Parañaque; Congressman Eduardo Zialcita of Parañaque; Mr. and Mrs. Philip Recto, Charing Medina and Charito De Leon – all benefactors of Our Lady of Peace Hospital; and Ambassador Alfonso Yuchengco, who donated the initial funds to build the Charity Ward of Our Lady of Peace Hospital, which is named after his mother, Doña Maria H.T. Yuchengco.

Our media has been featuring bad news: graft, corruption, selfishness, greed. This training course for our indigenous native tribes is good news. The salvation of this nation will not come from the elite who control all the money. It will come from the rank and file of our people, who believe in helping one another, like the barefoot doctors.

"Laissez faire" is the way of the West. It means: "Every man for himself". It works for the West. But it does not work for us. Our way – the Filipino way – is reaching out to each other, working together, helping each other. It is…… Bayanihan!

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