Barangay Health Summits: 71 barangays meet to address problems in health service delivery

Earl Enrico Alcala (standing, left), WHO SNI Consultant, talks about Performance Accountability System (PAS) during the summit of Sta. Maria, Davao Occidental. PAS involves a series of scored activities that will ensure implementation of barangay health breakthrough plans and encourage excellence in performance and service delivery towards creating a culture of care for pregnant women and newborns.

About 325 local officials and community leaders from 71 barangays joined the four ”Barangay Stakeholders Health Summits” initiated by the Accelerating Convergence Efforts on Systems Strengthening for Maternal and Newborn Health (AcCESS for MNH), a project of the WHO Sub-National Initiative (WHO SNI) in partnership with the Department of Health Regional Office XI (DOH RO XI).

The health summit is a strategy to attain the wholesale engagement of Barangay Local Government Units (BLGUs) which is critical to achieving the desired health outcomes in Davao Region. It underscored the importance of engaging BLGUs in addressing bottlenecks in the efficient delivery of quality maternal and newborn health services. Barangay officials were urged to take the lead and work closely with health workers in addressing problems given that LGUs have more leverage when it comes to finding solutions.

Barangay and community leaders role-play an actual situation in health care for pregnant women during the health summit of Don Marcelino, Davao Occidental.

DOH RO XI also cascaded its regional vision of “Walang Nanay at Sanggol ang Mamamatay dahil sa Panganganak (No mother and newborn shall die due to childbirth),” its rallying call to reduce maternal and newborn deaths in Davao Region and contribute to the attainment of related Sustainable Development Goals. The barangay leaders formulated their respective health breakthrough plans aligned to this vision, ensuring that the approach in setting objectives or targets is oriented towards people rather than the program or statistics. Its implementation is hoped to increase maternal and neonatal health performance indicators such as antenatal care, skilled birth attendance, facility-based delivery, and newborn initiated breastfeeding, among others.

Part of the breakthrough plan is the formation of the Team D Champs composed of barangay officials, health workers, IP leaders, and other community stakeholders which will become the community-based mobilization and support mechanism to reach out to all pregnant women. Team D Champs are expected to be formed in the communities and will play a critical role in creating a web of care for maternal and newborn health.

A participant (standing at right) in the health summit of Davao Oriental stresses the need for stronger collaboration between health workers and barangay leaders to ensure the delivery of quality health care to pregnant women especially in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas.

The summits were organized for four municipalities belonging to the project sites of AcCESS for MNH, namely Don Marcelino and Sta. Maria in the province of Davao Occidental, and Manay and Caraga in Davao Oriental. Held in November and December last year, the summits were attended by Barangay Captains, Barangay Kagawad on Health, Municipal Local Government Operations Officer, Municipal Health Officers, Public Health Nurses, Midwives, Mandated Representatives of Indigenous Peoples, and other barangay representatives.