Boso Boso Health Work

Saturday June 15

Back from Boso Boso, where I finally got to experience some great hands on health work, as well as experience herbal hunting, and do my first popular education on women's health and childbirth! While this trip didn't provide much opportunity for Aiyanas, as we anticipate Negros will, he did get to spend some quality time playing basketball and gathered quite the local B-ball posse! The kids loved the rice fields, the beautiful forests, and the zillion friends they made.

Too tired to write much now. I write this from the CHD office, where we are sleeping tonight, exhausted from moving around, adjusting and re-adjusting. Today Aiyanas and I visited the provincial prison in Bulacan and accompanied a physican from Health Action for Human Rights on a medical visit to one of the political prisoners. So many activities to fill our time.

Back to Boso Boso. This particular community based health program was initiated in 1993 in reponse to the crisis in maternal mortality and morbidity due to the long travel to the nearest public hospital and the unpaved status of the road at that time. Now the program is 15 years old, and has hit a plateau. There are many skilled CHWs, but they have become clinic-focussed and too heavily geared towards their small Western-based pharmacy. My schedule of prenatal clinic, herbal gathering, and maternal-child health education was intended to help re-inspire the CHWs to get back out into the community, do home visits again, and refresh their tremendous herbal knowledge. It was exciting for me to a) be able to share my skills concretely, b) learn so much in such a short time about available herbal remedies, and c) use all of the knowledge and teaching skills I have practiced so much at South Commmunity over the last year and a half. While I saw many pitfalls of Community Based Health Programs, there were many successes gained through this program, and some leadership and direction could spark some innovative new practices for Boso Boso.

The highlight of this exposure / health integration was the prenatal visit I did in what I could best describe as a sweat shop where women were sewing children's clothing for some brand name I didn't recognize. The door-to-door prenatal afternoon was incredible, and I hope to do this more in Negros. The most challenging visit was the young woman having her second baby and suffering terrible pain from a large palpable symphysis pubis separation; I hope the PT pointers and mobility suggestions I passed on will help - but sleeping on the floor and doing physical work all day will not!

Sleeping is what I must do now. Good night, all.