An Evaluation on the Health Program in the Kaibigan Ministries Halfway House in Cabrera St, Pasay City

1. Introduction

According to the World Health Organization (2006), poverty is what stops individuals or households from being able to enjoy a certain standard of well-being where anyone below this said standard is considered poor. The standard would be the capability to not only access one’s basic needs but also to have access to security, safety and health services. Moving out of poverty is possible, and rates are even greater in communities that have a higher percentage of poor people. (Narayan & Patesch, 2010) Poverty could be summarized into two main causes, economic such as unemployment and economic underdevelopment, and socio-cultural which is linked to psychological disabilities of the lower classes. (Bautista, 2005) In the Philippines, according to the latest available statistics in the PSA (2015), there are still 3.8 million Filipinos who are under the poverty line or poverty threshold which is the minimum needed in order to get meet their needs and 1.3 million Filipino families were not able to meet their food needs.

        The Center for Community Transformation (CCT) was formed in 1991 as a Christian response to help alleviate the poverty situation in the Philippines. During that time, it should be noted that the unemployment rate was also at its highest at 14.4%, based from the data from January 1985 until October 2005. (WHO, 2008) Ms. Ruth Callanta, founder of the Center for Community Transformation saw the need to integrate spiritual transformation to the interventions being done by both government and non government organizations (NGO) in empowering the people in the communities to rise above their circumstances. The founder believed that all interventions, whether economic or social political need to be centered on the spiritual renewal and transformation of the people being assisted. (Rosario, 2017)

        As early as 1998, Ms. Ruth Callanta on her own initiative, had already began a feeding program outside of the CCT office for the street dwellers in front of the Philippine General Hospital.  In 2001, she expanded her personal assistance to people on the street by feeding and buying slippers for the children in the wet market of Las Piñas City. In 2005, Ms. Ruth Callanta was invited by Pastor Eliezer Del Mundo, Sr. to participate in the street dwellers activities at Rizal Park.  As a result, a street side fellowship meeting was mobilized outside the CCT office in Taft Ave., where people in the streets were befriended and fed, both physically and spiritually. With the number of beneficiaries increasing, there was a need for a place where the street people, now called as Kaibigan could come and be given assistance for their needs. In 2008, Congressman Harry Roque offered their ancestral home in Cabrera, Pasay City as a drop in center and halfway house for the Kaibigans. This now became the hub of operations for the street dwellers program. Among the different services offered by the community center is the health program that the paper will tackle into. (Agustin, 2017)

        Poverty and health are factors that directly vary with one another as poor people are more likely to suffer higher mortality rates and levels of disease. In addition, poor people are less likely to have access to proper healthcare and are more prone to becoming ill. On another point, health also affects poverty as healthier people are more likely to have a higher rate of productivity, have a higher human capital due to an increase in cognitive potential since they’re less likely to be absent. Investing in health can also lead to higher foreign and domestic investment rates along with a more balanced dependency ratio due to the smaller mortality rate for workers. (OECD & WHO, 2003) As such, the strong linkage between poverty and health could be summarized into two cycles: the vicious cycle where poverty breeds ill-health and ill-health leads to greater poverty, and the virtuous cycle where higher income is connected to good health and vice versa. (WHO, 2006) However, disproportion in health status along with inability to access health resources still remains as a major problem in our country. (Go, Pabico, Caro & Tee, 2016)

        The health program of the Kaibigan house began in November 2008 and can be said to be running for almost a decade. Because of the strong involvement between health and poverty—which shows the importance of the health program being effective, this study aims to evaluate its current status and progress in order to show if it has been beneficial for the people and to see how it is going.  This paper also deserves an earnest consideration since it would be beneficial to the company to see its progress and if the program is upholding its purpose until present and would also be able to serve as a reference for future researchers should they wish to conduct new studies related to the objectives or aspects that this research will tackle.

Due to time constraint, the people that were interviewed in the paper has been limited to the street dwellers from Taft of Metro Manila and others that are willing to be integrated into the Kaibigan program of CCT group of Ministries along with the workers of the health program who were present during the time of interview or visitation. There are both primary and secondary sources used for this qualitative research, where the primary sources came mostly from in-depth interviews, open ended questions in e-mail surveys and observations and the secondary sources from printed journals, thesis, books and credible internet sources.

For the review of related literature, two papers were used so far. The first paper that was used as a basis was the evaluation of the public health situation in Batac City, Ilocos Norte by Manzano (2016) where she evaluated the situation in Batac city and their solutions. Another related literature used was a thesis called Project L.I.G.A. Salaban: Lahat iinom ng gamot salaban! A community-based health program in Barangay Salaban, Amadeo, cavite by Cayabyab, Fajado et. Al (2016) where the main topic discussed was hypertension and the paper evaluated the problem of hypertension in the area, created a viable solution, implemented the program to the community then evaluated said program to see if it was effective.

1. Discussion and Analysis

Health, as defined by the World Health Organization in 1947 would not only be the absence of any illness but also the presence of wellbeing. (Issel, 2014) Health programs are formed not only for the communities to prevent diseases through lectures and making people aware on what’s going on, but also for communities to control diseases through clinics that help people’s health and wellness in general and provide them with what they need to get better when they’re sick or injured. (CDC, 2011) The evaluation of this health program in the halfway house for the Kaibigans will revolve around that purpose.                                                                                             The       The Kaibigan halfway house is currently composed of 36 people, specifically with 10 children, 12 adult females and 14 adult males.  The halfway house was formerly composed of 59 people where 23 were sent to the next part of the transition program as they finished the halfway house program. The health program in the kaibigan halfway house is composed of a small clinic, two isolation rooms for each gender, a residency place for those who are pregnant or live very far and an area for their health awareness programs every month.