UP Manila Had A Great Community Health Program – Then It Was Gone, Just Like That!

Today, Friday, 18 October 2019, I decided to ransack the piles of old books I have at the corner of my room to the left, 4 piles, aside from 4 shelves up there on the wall in front of me and my computer setup – a 2013 Lenovo ThinkPad touchscreen, Core 17 processor, 600 GB hard disk, with 4 GB memory, powered by Windows 10 and Office Suite 2013, with an external ViewSonic 20-inch monitor, plus a WiFi connection via HomeBro Ultera. So I have all that digital power waiting to be used for selling ideas for personal and communal development. 

I picked up books from the top of the nearest pile, and after rejecting 5 volumes as topic for my next essay, I have chosen this one, long title:

The University Of The Philippines Comprehensive Community Health Program 1964-1988: Reflections And Relevance.

And you know what? This book exemplifies what I mention in the last sentence of my first paragraph above:

So I have all that digital power waiting to be used for selling ideas for personal and communal development. This time in health.

The book was published in 2008, 84 inside pages 7" x 8.5" trim size. The author is The UP CCHP Book Task Force composed of the following (as listed): Irma L Parajas, Ruben N Carajay, Guillermina C Panizales, Shirley C Arquiza, Maria Lucia Mirasol Magallona, Ronaldo O Rogel, and Lorna S Labayen.

That health program was really a health service setup, not your usual community hospital. It was known simply as UP Comprehensive. It was located in Bay, Laguna, and we were residing in Los Baños, next town going to Manila. My son Edwin Dante Reynoso Hilario was born there, 06 April 1988, and I saw the health services were good. After all, it was UP!

UP Comprehensive was set up in 1964 and became a full-pledged university program in 1970. It "practiced the principles of community health development in the areas of training, research, and extension services."

More. From page 3:

The Comprehensive Community Health Program… shifted the focus of health from curative to promotive and its location from tertiary hospitals in urban centers to communities in rural settings. Designed to respond to the health needs of communities then, the CCHP remains relevant today because of similar health needs and the validity of the approaches that were tried out, foremost of which were the interdisciplinary, multi-sectoral approach to health, community participation in designing and implementing health interventions, identification, investigation, and application of indigenous knowledge and practices (such as the use of medicinal plants) and the identification and training of community-based para-professional health workers.

Note: "Remains relevant today." And: "There was community participation in designing and implementing health interventions… and application of indigenous knowledge and practices."

So, why did UP Manila stop at Bay, Laguna with the CCHP? Why did they not propose to multiply the CCHP in communities in the Philippines?

A gargantuan failure of UP Manila officials to recognize greatness when they saw it in themselves!@517