Tags: Inspirational Stories, Poverty
By Alexander Villafania
DATU ODIN SINSUAT, MAGUINDANAO – Nursia Ismael is a Muslim nurse. No, she did not become a nurse because her name seemed to have predicted her future profession. She wanted to be one, studying at the United Doctors Medical Center and working in Saudi Arabia for five years.
But unlike most nurses who dream of working abroad, Nursia came back to the Philippines and chose to be where most nurses would think twice about going – her home province of Maguindanao.
Nursia is among the handful of nurses and doctors who serve in Maguindanao’s healthcare sector, a geographically loose but closely knit society of medical professionals who, despite working under threat of armed conflict, continue to exercise their passion of serving their fellow Maguindanaoans.
Despite the bad rap that her province has been getting – no thanks to the infamous Maguindanao Massacre in 2009 – Nursia said she still owes it to Maguindanao being her birthplace.
She serves as chief nurse of the Dinaig Municipal Hospital in Datu Odin Sinsuat, a second class municipality a few kilometers from the main capital of Shariff Aguak.
DOS, as Datu Odin Sinsuat is more locally known, has also been the scene of fighting between government troops and Muslim insurgents. It is also the only hospital within a 35 kilometer radius. The nearest one is the Cotabato Regional Hospital.
While the small hospital has served virtually all kinds of medical concerns and conditions, Nursia said that it has also served as a refuge for uprooted families of fighting, as well as natural disasters particularly floods. In many instances, less than five nurses – almost all volunteers — are available to care for the sick.
“Sometimes, we would hear shooting and bombs exploding all over us but couldn’t just run away without helping people,” Nursia said, speaking in Filipino.
She narrated that in one instance, a sick Muslim soldier was brought by a cadre of insurgents to the hospital. One of the insurgents became verbally malevolent but avoided hurting anyone in the hospital. “The insurgent was released after a few days and we were left unharmed.”
One specific problem that she says is a major concern in Maguindanao is malnutrition of children, which is a typical concern among poor, homeless families who have been uprooted due to fighting.
Citing a report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the malnutrition rate in Maguindanao as of 2009 is pegged at 9.8 percent. However, Nursia said many of these go unreported as parents with malnourished children fail to report about their states of health, a concern which continues to grow as many more families flee from the fighting.
Nursia, along with about 20 other nurses, were trained under UNICEF’s Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM), a project aimed at responding to the worsening malnutrition problem in Maguindanao.
“Many parents come in not knowing what was wrong with their children. We’ve had many cases of very severely malnourished children who appear to only have skin and bone. Many families suffer this same fate because they could not have access to clean water, sanitation, and other basic necessities,” Nursia said.
Still, she lauds the UNICEF project in Maguindanao, adding that it should help the plight of many malnourished and dying children in her home province. “I hope there would be more efforts to help these children and it should come from the government.”
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AS FAR AS THE SAVE IS CONCERN I WOULD LIKE TO EXTEND MY SUPPORT TO THIS PROGRAM TO GIVE ATTENTION ALL THE CHILD TRAFICKING.
i like this program.save the children.
very nice program……..