A 'miracle' medical center

“This is like a miracle,” said Benny Ricafort, as he talked of a facility where the poor with severed limbs due to diabetes or accidents, disabled hearing and women giving birth can be treated and attended to for free. This is the Jesus A. Datu Medical Center (JADMC) in Bacolor, Pampanga, where medical equipment, prostethics, and medical services are provided and given free through a voluntary networking among private agencies, socio-civic organizations and individuals.

Last week, ten disabled persons sitting in wheelchairs or walking with the aid of crutches, received specially made legs, and the clinic for surgeries of cataracts and glaucoma, was opened. On the ground floor is the birthing department. To open soon is the section for the treatment of people with hearing disabilities.

This miracle is due to the efforts of Kapampangan Development Foundation, Inc. (KDF), which was organized in 1987 by business and professional Kapampangans to assist and organize small and medium-size enterprises of the province of Pampanga and neighboring pampango-speaking towns of Concepcion, Tarlac, and San Miguel, Bulacan. Starting with assisting victims of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, the national government formed the Small/Medium Enterprises Development Council (SMED) in the provinces. The Metro Angeles Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MACCI) elected Benny Ricafort as SMED chair for the province of Pampanga.

The miracle first manifested itself with the desire of Dr. Jesus A. Datu, a Bacolor-born doctor who lived in the US, to provide health services for his community. After his death, the Datu, Angeles, David Memorial Foundation Inc., was organized, and his widow, Mrs. Joan Datu, a nurse, and daughter Joycelyn, who is a professor at Harvard University in Boston, signed a usufruct agreement i.e., that KDF would use the facility for free for ten years but only as a charity project. Mother and daughter are with the US-based Love for Life Foundation which helps find sourcing for used hospital equipment.

Relatives of the Datus present at the awarding of prostethics and opening of the cataract/pterygium department last week were retired Generals Cristy Datu and Virgilio David, and Erlinda Datu Arcilla.

The launch inspirational message of Atty. Nicolas Lutero of the Department of Health praised the KDF-JADMC project, for private groups answering the need for special medical services in the rural areas, and realizing that “the government can’t do it (provide all services) alone.”

Benny, who is a co-founder of KDF, put in place the time-tested principle of networking. Sometime in 2007, KDF renewed and expanded program efforts leading to initiatives on corporate social responsibilities (CSR) programs. Thus the acronym HELP was established. This stands for health, education, livelihood and province.

Except for the cleft palate/harelip pre-surgery and post surgery — a fourth KDF program — performed at the SACOP facilities through the compliments of the Mother Teresa of Calcutta Hospital in San Fernando and Quota International, all activities are held at the JADMC. Under the “Walking Free,” program for prosthesis and wheelchairs, the local priest announced the screening of beneficiaries, who must be certified as indigents. The prosthesis are fabricated, with funding from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes, with the help of the Philippine General Hospital Orthotics Department headed by Dr. Penny Bundoc, in partnership with the Physicians for Peace. Beneficiaries not physically capacitated to use prosthetics are given wheelchairs.

The “Smiling Free” activity is almost always focused on children with cleft palates whose parents cannot afford the high cost of the needed surgery and hospitalization estimated at P60,000. This is done in cooperation with volunteer doctors, pediatricians, surgeons, anesthetists, nurses and a speech therapist. Participating in this activity are the Mother Teresa of Calcutta Hospital (based in San Fernando), Quota International, Arellano and Fatima universities.

It’s mostly elderly persons who are beneficiaries of the “Seeing Free” program. Doctors may charge for the operations intended to deterring blindness, their fees taken care of by KDF’s private organizations, like the Rotary and Lions clubs.

The “Well-Family,” mother and child project takes care of normal deliveries and has lying-in features including pre-natal, delivery and post-natal services.  

Dr. Francisco P. V. Cayco, chairman and CEO of Arellano University, told me the KDF-JADMC project is an answer to providing training opportunities for the university’s nursing students. He said hospitals in urban areas do not have room for the students, so the KDF-JADMC project is a timely development. “The essence of nursing is really in the community. Remember, Florence Nightingale started her work in the rural areas during the Crimean War.” In fact, said Dr. Cayco, he wants to integrate community nursing in his university’s nursing curriculum.

Also present was Rudy Mallari, representative of World Medical Relief, Inc., which contributes 90 percent of the facility’s medical equipment, including high-tech machines and beds.

It was a moving sight — as beneficiaries in wheelchairs, or hobbling, with the use of crutches, to receive “new legs,” trying on the prosthetics that they had longed to have, but could not afford them. Some of them: Philip Anthony Torno, Charmaine Martin, Michael Ladrillo, John Azly Mamangon.

The JADCM medical director is Dr. Santos, and the full-time ophthalmologist is Dr. Emmy Lou L. Santos.

Echoing Benny’s enthusiasm, the dynamic KDF executive director, Sylvia Munoz Ordonez, said, “Yes, this is a miracle.”

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I must have been feeling under the weather (or senior moment occurred?) when I wrote that Mariano Ngan’s novel was titled Cracks in the Mirror. The real title is Cracks in the Armor. My apologies, Mar. I was invited to the book launch held at Bethel House in Dumaguete City, which was attended by the author’s friends, many of whom were his former classmates (Silliman University High School Class of ’58). I spoke with a couple of them who said that Mariano was an admired literary figure who wrote good prose and poetry for the school paper.

The program was a strictly family affair — with the Ngans’ four daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren and a grandchild doing their bit to honor the author, clearly the love of their lives. Readings of excerpts from the book’s chapters were done, and songs were rendered by close family friend Andy Bais. Eldest daughter Marissa Dames said it took two years for the book to be finished, and finally, there it was, published neatly by New Day Publishers — as the children’s gift for him. Her dad is now working on a second book — this one on poems he wrote. Marissa is not surprised: “Books were always part of Dad’s and us sisters’ lives. Dad made sure of that, he took us on trips to bookstores. And Mom was ever supportive of Dad’s endeavors. This book is his legacy to us, to bring honor and dignity to our lives.”

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