Bacolodīs Laudable Initiative Worth Emulation
Mike Banos
June 07, 2009
Hereīs a laudable initiative by the Bacolod City Council as reported recently in the online version of The Visayan Daily Star of Negros that the Cagayan de Oro City Council and Misamis Oriental Provincial Board should consider worth emulating.
The story by Chrysee Samillano said the SP passed a resolution "requesting the Bacolod City government to prioritize and treat as urgent the need for adequate, accessible, and potable water supply for all the public elementary and secondary schools in Bacolod City."
The resolution sponsored by Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, also requests the Bacolod City Water District to conduct a comprehensive technical check up of all existing pipes and line to schools for possible leaks to help fix possible leaks, conserve water and protect school children from possible contaminants which could pose risks to their health.
The resolution acknowledged how the world water crisis has become one of the foremost public health issues today with nearly 1.1 billion people (roughly 20 percent of the worldīs population) lacking access to safe drinking water. In Bacolod City, less than one half to about 20 percent of the public secondary and elementary schools have access to clean and potable water from the water district. Water service to over half of the schools has reportedly been discontinued by the water district due to their sizable bills which school officials claim are due to leaks in their water pipes.
Itīs ironic how many of the public schools in the city and province where the Global Handwashing Day initiative originally started should be wanting in this basic necessity.
The Philippine initiative started over a year ago in Misamis Oriental when the provincial government, non-government agencies (NGOs) and national government agencies signed an agreement to jointly undertake pro-active measures to improve school children's health in the province. This was later expanded to cover nearby Cagayan de Oro.
The Essential Health Care Package (EHCP) seeks to ensure that all children in elementary schools and day care centers are provided with soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste to brush their teeth daily with fluoride toothpaste, wash their hands, undergo de-worming twice a year, and gain access to improved water and sanitation facilities in public pre-and elementary schools all over the province.
Nearly all school children in the Philippines (97%) suffer from cavities and other tooth diseases due to poor oral health care. The implementation of this program aims to reduce this figure by 50%.
In school year 2007, Misamis Oriental had 102,772 elementary school students in 359 public elementary schools. Personnel directly and indirectly charged with the school children's oral health care include 35 school health personnel including two medical officers, five school dentists, 23 school nurses, five dental aides and 2,875 teachers.
An EHCP program is now also being implemented for Cagayan de Oro's 71,502 elementary school students and 7,622 pre-schoolers.
Ironically, the lack of safe, potable water in the schools of the city and province poses a daunting challenge for the project, noted Dr. Bella Monse, consultant for the Center for International Migration and Development/German Agency for Technical Cooperation (CIM/GTZ) which is supporting the project.
Monse said water is the base for any improvement in public health and īthere is much to do in the Philippines.ī Although its two cities and 20 of its 23 municipalities have Level III Water Systems in their poblacions, very few have extended the service to barangays outside these town centers. The province has a total of 422 barangays.
Even the Cagayan de Oro City Water District, the only one in the country today assured of water security till 2015 because of its bulk water supply project, only has a 53% total service connections ratio to all households, projected to improve to 88% by 2015.
Spearheaded by a high profile coalition, the Public Private Partnership for Handwashing which includes UNICEF, USAID, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention; Water & Sanitation Program; Unilever and Procter & Gamble the inaugural Global Handwashing Day focused on school children as agents of change and created awareness for schools, homes and communities to maximize outreach to children all over the world by promoting handwashing with soap to reduce diarrhea in developing countries and implement large-scale handwashing interventions by combining the expertise and resources of the soap industry with the facilities and resources of governments.
In the same breath, it has also called attention on the crucial role potable water plays in improving the appalling oral heath status of schoolchildren in the country as shown in the 2006 National Oral Health Survey of the child population in the Philippines.
Among the main results of the survey: 97% of six year olds and 82% of 12-year olds had tooth decay (caries); 74% of 12-year olds had infections of the gums with bleeding caused by the lack of proper tooth brushing with 16% experiencing toothache at the time of their examination, and 27% having a below normal Body Mass Index (BMI).
Children with abscesses and swellings in the mouth caused by advanced untreated caries had a lower BMI than children without it. Most appalling, the oral health condition of children had not improved since the last survey in 1998.
While pilot studies have shown daily school based fluoride tooth brushing would reduce new dental caries by 40%, there's still no available data on how many of the target schools have potable drinking water which would make the daily routine of hand washing, tooth brushing and twice a year deworming a feasible option.
Monse noted how the project has posed an excellent entry point for water and sanitation issues in the schools. While it will not solve the problem by itself, it will bring water and sanitation higher on the agenda of all schools and barangays. Through the new legislation of school based management and school improvement plans, it is now easier to coordinate schools and barangays to make access to water a priority of the whole school community.
Considering how hygiene and hand washing with soap plays a key role in combating potential pandemics posed by the like of the AH1N1, avian flu and SARS viruses, itīs imperative legislators in the city and province acknowledge this by emulating the laudable initiative of the Bacolod City Council to ask its water district to prioritize providing safe potable water in schools and checking their existing pipelines for leaks and illegal connections.
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The story by Chrysee Samillano said the SP passed a resolution "requesting the Bacolod City government to prioritize and treat as urgent the need for adequate, accessible, and potable water supply for all the public elementary and secondary schools in Bacolod City."
The resolution sponsored by Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, also requests the Bacolod City Water District to conduct a comprehensive technical check up of all existing pipes and line to schools for possible leaks to help fix possible leaks, conserve water and protect school children from possible contaminants which could pose risks to their health.
The resolution acknowledged how the world water crisis has become one of the foremost public health issues today with nearly 1.1 billion people (roughly 20 percent of the worldīs population) lacking access to safe drinking water. In Bacolod City, less than one half to about 20 percent of the public secondary and elementary schools have access to clean and potable water from the water district. Water service to over half of the schools has reportedly been discontinued by the water district due to their sizable bills which school officials claim are due to leaks in their water pipes.
Itīs ironic how many of the public schools in the city and province where the Global Handwashing Day initiative originally started should be wanting in this basic necessity.
The Philippine initiative started over a year ago in Misamis Oriental when the provincial government, non-government agencies (NGOs) and national government agencies signed an agreement to jointly undertake pro-active measures to improve school children's health in the province. This was later expanded to cover nearby Cagayan de Oro.
The Essential Health Care Package (EHCP) seeks to ensure that all children in elementary schools and day care centers are provided with soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste to brush their teeth daily with fluoride toothpaste, wash their hands, undergo de-worming twice a year, and gain access to improved water and sanitation facilities in public pre-and elementary schools all over the province.
Nearly all school children in the Philippines (97%) suffer from cavities and other tooth diseases due to poor oral health care. The implementation of this program aims to reduce this figure by 50%.
In school year 2007, Misamis Oriental had 102,772 elementary school students in 359 public elementary schools. Personnel directly and indirectly charged with the school children's oral health care include 35 school health personnel including two medical officers, five school dentists, 23 school nurses, five dental aides and 2,875 teachers.
An EHCP program is now also being implemented for Cagayan de Oro's 71,502 elementary school students and 7,622 pre-schoolers.
Ironically, the lack of safe, potable water in the schools of the city and province poses a daunting challenge for the project, noted Dr. Bella Monse, consultant for the Center for International Migration and Development/German Agency for Technical Cooperation (CIM/GTZ) which is supporting the project.
Monse said water is the base for any improvement in public health and īthere is much to do in the Philippines.ī Although its two cities and 20 of its 23 municipalities have Level III Water Systems in their poblacions, very few have extended the service to barangays outside these town centers. The province has a total of 422 barangays.
Even the Cagayan de Oro City Water District, the only one in the country today assured of water security till 2015 because of its bulk water supply project, only has a 53% total service connections ratio to all households, projected to improve to 88% by 2015.
Spearheaded by a high profile coalition, the Public Private Partnership for Handwashing which includes UNICEF, USAID, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention; Water & Sanitation Program; Unilever and Procter & Gamble the inaugural Global Handwashing Day focused on school children as agents of change and created awareness for schools, homes and communities to maximize outreach to children all over the world by promoting handwashing with soap to reduce diarrhea in developing countries and implement large-scale handwashing interventions by combining the expertise and resources of the soap industry with the facilities and resources of governments.
In the same breath, it has also called attention on the crucial role potable water plays in improving the appalling oral heath status of schoolchildren in the country as shown in the 2006 National Oral Health Survey of the child population in the Philippines.
Among the main results of the survey: 97% of six year olds and 82% of 12-year olds had tooth decay (caries); 74% of 12-year olds had infections of the gums with bleeding caused by the lack of proper tooth brushing with 16% experiencing toothache at the time of their examination, and 27% having a below normal Body Mass Index (BMI).
Children with abscesses and swellings in the mouth caused by advanced untreated caries had a lower BMI than children without it. Most appalling, the oral health condition of children had not improved since the last survey in 1998.
While pilot studies have shown daily school based fluoride tooth brushing would reduce new dental caries by 40%, there's still no available data on how many of the target schools have potable drinking water which would make the daily routine of hand washing, tooth brushing and twice a year deworming a feasible option.
Monse noted how the project has posed an excellent entry point for water and sanitation issues in the schools. While it will not solve the problem by itself, it will bring water and sanitation higher on the agenda of all schools and barangays. Through the new legislation of school based management and school improvement plans, it is now easier to coordinate schools and barangays to make access to water a priority of the whole school community.
Considering how hygiene and hand washing with soap plays a key role in combating potential pandemics posed by the like of the AH1N1, avian flu and SARS viruses, itīs imperative legislators in the city and province acknowledge this by emulating the laudable initiative of the Bacolod City Council to ask its water district to prioritize providing safe potable water in schools and checking their existing pipelines for leaks and illegal connections.
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