Unilab, Quezon City seal ‘social partnership’

MANILA, Philippines - At a time when CSR or corporate social responsibility has become a buzz word among private firms, United Laboratories (Unilab), the country’s biggest Filipino-owned pharmaceutical firm, is doing something different but also with the best of intentions.

Unilab has engaged the Quezon City government for a so-called “social partnership” for a number of activities with the end goal of improving maternal health in Quezon City.

Why maternal health?

In a recent interview with The Star, Claire Papa, Unilab’s External Affairs head said it is because the importance of maternal health cannot be overemphasized.

“It’s also part of helping the country reach the MDG on maternal health,” Papa says.

The MDGs are eight international development goals established following the United Nations Summit in 2000 and targeted to be achieved by 2015. MDG 5 is to improve maternal health.

Papa says they decided to choose Quezon City because the city has one of the highest numbers of maternal and child deaths in the country.

The chief of the Quezon City Health Department (QCHD), Dr. Antonieta Inumerable, confirmed this in a recent interview with The Star.

According to Dr. Inumerable, maternal mortality rates in the city have been on an increasing trend from 2008 to 2011, with the number of deaths in 2011 reaching 43. This is up from 17, 32 and 33 in 2008, 2009 and 2010, respectively.

“The majority of these deaths were a result of pregnancy complications during labor, delivery and the post-partum period. The most common causes of death included post-partum hemorrhage, hypertension, maternal malnutrition, unsafe abortions, severe infections and other medical complications resulting from poor birth spacing and other infections such as tuberculosis, diabetes and chronic hypertension,” Unilab said in a separate statement.

It is to help arrest these trends that Unilab and the Quezon City government tied up for the social partnership.

The interventions include the education of barangay health workers, public and private midwives, traditional birthing assistants or hilots and mothers themselves.

Dr. Inumerable said educating these practitioners, especially private midwives is crucial because they are not regulated.

The social partnership has paved the way for Unilab’s Bayanihan sa Kalusugan program. Through this partnership, the QCHD has rolled out programs to strengthen the capability of the city’s 62 health centers located all over its districts, Unilab said.

“This is really a big help to us,” says Dr. Inumerable.

The training provided went beyond barangay health workers but also included private and public midwives, through partnerships with the Professional Regulation Commission and other relevant organizations. Unilab provided training assistance and the training modules.

The partnership also included a program to help the traditional hilots transition from their current line of work to alternative means of livelihood, starting with the Hilot Assembly in June 2011.

Citing QCHD data, Dr. Inumerable says that the number of home deliveries performed by hilots dropped to 5,072 in 2011 from an alarming 15,943 in 2009.

Dr. Inumerable says the number is expected to go down even more as the Quezon City government enforces a new city ordinance that regulate the operations of birthing homes in the city.

With City Ordinance No. 2100, S11, the Quezon City government ensures that private lying-in clinics and birthing homes strictly comply with the city’s requirements, which can then qualify them for PhilHealth accreditation. There are currently 102 private lying-in clinics operating in Quezon City but only 29 of them are Philhealth-accredited.

 Unilab said in its statement that in support of this ordinance and yet another intervention under Unilab and Quezon City’s social partnership, Unilab and QCHD developed a city-wide referral system that will ensure that mothers going to lying-in clinics to give birth are given sufficient care and attention. Clinics and hospitals will have to fill out referral forms containing information such as the Philhealth membership of the mother and her dependents, interventions provided and other information relevant to the case of the pregnant mother pertaining to her delivery.

Last October, Unilab and the QCHD tied up for the country’s first local government unit-based Maternal Health Summit which provided reports on the maternal health situation in the city and brought together experts to address the problem.

Through these various initiatives, the QCHD hopes to significantly improve maternal health care conditions in Quezon City.

“Together with Unilab, the QCHD aims to develop long term and sustainable solutions to address maternal and child health issues where all concerned stake holders play an active role,” Dr. Inumerable said.

 She said the Quezon City government would continue to work with the public and private sector such as Unilab to ensure the health of its mothers and children.

 Unilab, for its part, will continue to help the Quezon City government in whatever way it can, says Papa.