 Dr. Christine Balasbas of Kawayan, Biliran Island, didn’t expect her job as Municipal Health Officer (MHO) to include going house to house convincing mothers to get their children vaccinated. “I was always interested in public health, but I thought that the job would be mainly curative. After LHP sent me to Kawayan, I realized that my job didn’t just stop at curing. In fact, it’s only 20% curative. The 80% was spent dealing and being with people, doing barangay*-visits, giving health education.
When I started with LHP in the municipality, I would see 40 to 60 patients a day. Everyone seemed to have the same problem—coughs and colds. They all believed that only a doctor could help them. After four years with the program, I now only see around 10 to 20 a day. This has shown me that the community has now taken a more preventive approach to health.  
In our municipality, health is now the priority not just for the people, but even the local government. Our health budget has increased, the rural health unit is much more motivated, even our statistics show that the program is working. Kawayan is going forward and things are getting better.”  *a barangay is a smaller village within a municipality; in the Municipality of Kawayan, there are 20 barangays with an average of 200 households per barangay.
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