Helping kids with cancer

One can’t fully describe the heart-breaking sight of children stricken with cancer. Nor can one measure the depression parents of these children go through. Can joy be brought to patients and parents even when they know the end for the patient is near? How can the last days of the child be made cheerful and pleasant?

The answer to these questions is yes, as proven by Kythe, which for 20 years, has been providing psycho-social care to chronically-ill children in 11 affiliate hospitals through a Child Life Program conducted by a team of professionals in the fields of counseling psychology and child development.

In 1992, two psychology graduate students of Ateneo de Manila University, Maria Fatima “Girlie” Garcia-Lorenzo and Icar Castro, formed Kythe to provide psychosocial support to pediatric cancer patients. Garcia says, “Kythe was formed as a response to an urgent need to provide psychosocial care to pediatric cancer patients. We needed to address the patient and their family’s emotional needs so they can cope with a catastrophic illness such as cancer.”

The Kythe Child Life Program, built around the principles of the International Child Life Council, has institutionalized a method known as PETALS. This stands for Preparation of the patient for medical procedures, Education about the illness, Therapeutic play, Assistance during medical procedures, and Lending emotional and support to the patient and family, and finally, Spiritual support.

Dr. Angelia Sievert-Fernandez, clinical psychologist and Kythe Child Life Program manager, says Kythe is now conducting studies on pain management aside from subscribing to updated foreign researches and literature. “The Kythe Child Life Program is discipline and practice altogether. Down to our activities, we design the program for confined children and even for their families on proof points oriented towards their growth.”

Individuals and companies have devoted time and resources to keep the program going. Gerry Bacarro,  Kythe president, says he got on board “because I was drawn to these happy children despite their serious medical condition.” He is a former Pfizer regional president for South Asia and president of Pfizer Philippines.

Volunteers — students, housewives, top company executives — take time out to visit chronically ill children in the hospitals. Some bring goodies, books, and other recreational materials for the kids. Activities for the patients include bedside play, integrated reading program, art therapy, and summer camps.

Aside from giving psychosocial counseling, Kythe helps families with financial assistance. That’s why the organization welcomes support from compassionate donors. Contact Kythe at 632-3763454, through email [email protected], and www.kythe.org.

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A friend forwarded to me an Oreo cookie advertisement through email. When I watched the 30 second commercial, I found myself reminiscing about my own childhood experiences with this iconic cookie. Yup, this was during the time when you could only enjoy Oreos when a balikbayan relative brought them, or if they were bought from a “PX store.”

For such an unassuming little cookie, Oreos have this magical way of turning ordinary moments into an instant childlike delight. You got that right — childlike. I’m quite envious of free-spirited kids who run around parks, dance under the rain, climb trees, and find entertainment in the simplest of things. I’m not saying that I have the time to do that, and at my age, I probably don’t have the strength to hop around and play patintero. But the joy that children get from those is merely an arms length away from us if we choose to spare a minute watching them at play.

It’s inevitable, we will age, but it doesn’t mean that the joy of life has to disappear with our busy schedules and what seems to be a never-ending pile of errands. There are simple things — like munching on a cookie — that we can make special. That’s what made the “Twist, Lick, and Dunk” advertisement resonate so much in me. More than a marketing slogan, these three magic words encourage us to slow down and take a moment to indulge in something enjoyable. Twisting that Oreo and revealing the cream center is like freeing a kid spirit — not to mention the moments it creates when you share the experience with others.

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Following the President’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) which was unclear on the issue of reproductive health, a network of individuals and organizations in the city of San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan urges P-Noy to clearly state he supports the passage of the long-pending Reproductive Health bill in Congress.

Helen Diolanda, Community Network for Population and Health (ComNet) spokesperson, stressed that family planning, an important element of reproductive health, should be an option that must be available to every Filipino couple. “When the President said in his SONA that the shortages in classrooms remain, our student population continues to grow and that responsible parenthood can address this, he is playing safe. The President must not play safe and should be clear that what he meant was to pass the RH bill which has been pending a decade ago,” explained Diolanda.

“He should be clear enough so that even Retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz of the Catholic Bishop Conference of the Philippines must not interpret the message that it was an endorsement for the Natural Family Planning Method Only,” she added.  

According to Diolanda their network promotes family planning and reproductive health as basic human rights and is also pushing for a local ordinance that will promote family planning and RH rights. “This is our contribution to the global campaign to realize the Millennium Development Goal 5, which is the promotion of maternal health,” Diolando said.

ComNet, a joint program on family planning by the local government of San Jose, Del Monte Bulacan and the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines (FPOP) is called Model FP Project. Funded by the European Union, the three -year project makes family planning information and services accessible to the poor, marginalized, socially excluded and underserved residents of the city. Part of the project is to train community leaders and barangay health workers and midwives to improve competency in delivering family planning services to the community.

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In a related subject, a group of women working in grassroots communities welcomed the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s pronouncements that they will make a list of anti-reproductive health bill candidates that they will support in the coming 2013 elections.

The Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines (DSWP), a national federation of 264 community women’s organizations with 40,000 members chaired by Elizabeth Angsioco is not threatened by this announcement and in fact, fully supports it. The list will make known the candidates to reject and not to vote for, said Angsioco.

The Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines (DSWP) is a national federation of 264 community women’s organizations with 40,000 members. 

Angsioco said, “The bishops will make our work easier. Inclusion in their list is a guarantee that a candidate is anti-RH. For women, especially those in poor communities such as our members, being anti-RH is being anti-women and anti-poor. With the bishops’ list, we will no longer need to do further research on anti-Rh bill candidates. We will simply campaign against and NOT vote for them.”

One will recall that the church openly campaigned against former Presidents Fidel Ramos and Erap Estrada and former Sen. Juan Flavier, but all of them won in the presidential and senatorial elections . Even at the local level, priests lambasted champions of the RH bill, but virtually all of those re-electionists won.

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