"RN Heals" Program serves rural areas in CV

CEBU, Philippines -Almost 1,500 nurses were deployed to rural and far-flung areas to the poor municipalities in Central Visayas this year under the Registered Nurses for Health Enhancement and Local Service or the “RN Heals” program of the Department of Health.

Dr. Lakshmi Legaspi, assistant regional director of the Department of Health (DOH) 7, said the deployment of nurses will last for a year. They were deployed in two batches.

“In February, we deployed 688 nurses all over the region and another 788 nurses were deployed last month. A total of 1,476 nurses were deployed for this year alone,” Legaspi said, adding that the program basically aims to provide a year of experience to licensed nurses.

Legaspi said that Cebu got more than 300 nurses in the first batch due to its large population which needed more manpower augmentation in providing basic health care services in rural communities.

For the second batch, Legaspi said that 520 out of the 788 nurses were assigned to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC), a government-manned tertiary hospital under the DOH based in Cebu City.

The VSMMC accommodates indigent patients from various provinces in the Visayas and Mindanao.

Legaspi explained that the “RN Heals” program is a collaborative project of the Department of Labor and Employment with the DOH, Department of Social Welfare and Development and the Philippine Regulations Commissions-Board of Nursing.

While on deployment, Legaspi said that the nurses were given an allowance of P8,000 a month by the DOH while the local government unit (LGU) where they are assigned will be the one to supervise them to ensure their safety and security, and provide modest board and lodging.

The LGUs are encouraged to provide additional allowances and benefits worth at least P2,000 for these nurses.

The recruitment and selection of these nurses shall be under the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) through its Regional Offices.

“We have distributed 62 midwives to the different towns and cities in the region,” Legaspi said, adding that there are areas where there are no municipal health doctors. In these areas, the DOH has to deploy physicians under the program called ‘Doctors to the Barrios. — (FREEMAN)