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Blood Stains, the Smell of Disinfectant and the RH Bill by Clarrise E.


Blood stains. I saw them everyday for months during a certain period in my life.Blood on the floor, on hospitals gowns and on previously pristine white sheets. The room could almost be a set of a horror movie if not for the dozens of crying babies and nursing mothers..

For weeks it was always the same routine. Everyday, I would march the hallway armed with my medical artillery. Thermometer, stethoscope, a sphygmomanometer and a piece of paper. The whole bond paper will be filled with vital sign statistics after my round was done. Temperature, blood pressure, heart rate and respiratory rate. One column for the mother, one column for the baby. Multiplied by a hundred.

I would always brace myself upon entering the ward because I know an hour of repetitive vital signs taking will pass before I get to leave and inhale fresh air again. Imagine this: 12 single sized hospital beds, 4 mothers per bed plus baby. Sometimes we get a 2-3 pairs of mother and child per hospital bed on a good day, but 6 pairs on a toxic shift. And yes, you did the math correctly. That’s a dozen people sharing one mattress. They would sleep while sitting down. Sometimes, the brazen ones would sleep on the bare floor.

I have to give credit to the hospital for doing the best they can. A few times per day, someone would wipe the floor with a heavily scented disinfectant, gather soiled hospital gowns and change the blood stained bed sheets. But with mothers and babies pouring in like giving birth is the newest craze of the nation and there is a million pesos to be won if a baby came out of your womb, there was still a lot to be done.

The odor of lochia mixed with the sharp sterile smell of industrial antiseptic would always haunt me on my way home. It stuck to my uniform and even my hair. While riding a jeepney, thoughts of these mothers cramped all together in clumps while their babies cried in discomfort occupied my mind. Furthermore, snippets of their stories would replay in my head like some eerie documentary montage about the status of women in some God-forsaken country. But this was not some African jungle miles from where I live, this was home.



I remember once overhearing a conversation, while giving medication, between my patient and her mother. A newborn baby girl was sleeping at their side. The grandmother was scolding her child because she would not stand up for herself when her husband got angry at her for giving birth, for the 3rd time, to yet another girl. He told her that he still wanted to try to have a boy, despite his meager income. I tried butting in to say that the father always determine the sex of the baby and it was not and will never be the mother’s fault for giving birth to a beautiful baby girl but they looked so heated I didn’t dare trespass. 

Social Services was always in our part of the hospital. It turned out, there were too many mothers who cannot pay the hospital fees to be able to go home with their child, hence, they get left behind to stay in the ward until they have the adequate finances to settle the bills, therefore occupying precious space that was supposed to be for newly arrived patients. Many of these families have more than 3 children to raise and take care of. And I wonder, if they cannot settle a less than 5,000 php hospital fee, how much harder would it be to feed, clothe and educate their existing children?

Thirteen. The youngest post-partum mother I’ve ever cared for. Giving birth at thirteen was not record breaking by any means, but it was still bewildering for me to think how much different her life would be  compared to other girls her age. I witnessed an instance one time where her baby was crying and she didn’t even know how to pick up her own child from the bed. Her ‘bedmates’, veteran mothers with 3 or more children and counting were trying to teach her how to carry her baby but all she looked was lost and defeated.

I always enjoyed watching mothers fill-out the birth certificate forms in the lying-in area. The choice of a child’s name must have been an important decision for the couple that most commonly include both party’s ideas. It will be the name the baby would be forever identified with. However, I was shocked by the percentage of women who would look at their husband’s / unwed father’s faces in a clueless haze asking him what he wanted to name the baby and even to the point of what spelling should the name be spelled in. It was the image of absolute reliance and incapability to decide that struck me the wrong way.

See, I grew up in an environment where women held all the cards and did all the decision making that has to be done. I couldn’t understand how these women could just depend everything on their spouses without having an opinion of their own. More than once, the mothers would always pass the birth certificate form to the father despite our request that they fill it up themselves. I could sense their hesitation and awkwardness in handling something important and it pained me to witness how crippled their sense of self worth were. Empowered, these women were definitely not.

She was 16, pregnant on her second trimester and was having respiratory problems. During my night shift, I went into her room almost every hour because she was having a hard time breathing despite already being administered Oxygen via nasal cannula and positioned in high Fowler’s (almost sitting). I took her Vital Signs more frequently and in the process, got to know her, and the father of the child who was watching her, a little better. She was a sweet girl, well-mannered, soft spoken, with lovely eyes. I thought that she shouldn’t be undergoing this kind of life-threatening condition at her age, that maybe, a little more guidance and information could have made a long way, but I do commend her strength in such adversities.

Shift ended. I endorsed the situation and went on my way. It was the last day of my stay in the ward and I felt pretty accomplished. I learned a lot and got to meet interesting people along the way. I wished the best to all the patients I’ve met during my stay and said a little prayer for those who may be needing a tad more help than others. I slept soundly that night. The next day, I learned that Lovely Eyes and her baby died in the delivery room due to respiratory complications.


So call me whatever names you want, threaten me with eternity in the fiery depths of hell.
These are the reasons why I support the RH Bill.

http://orchestroscopy.blogspot.com/2011/05/blood-stains-smell-of-disinfectant-and.html
Posted in RH Bill Philippines @clarriscent Blog
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Population Depletes Resources by Estanislao C. Albano

Nambukayan, one of the barangays in the hilly area  southwest of the Tabuk Valley, used to be richly endowed by nature. Most of the area was covered with thick virgin forest  where hard wood species were in abundance. The forest fairly burst  with wildlife – deer, wild pigs, monkeys, wild cats, wild chicken and all sorts of  birds. The streams all of which flowed all year round teemed with different species of fish and other aquatic resources. 

 

(Photo: Due to the attractive price of corn in recent years, the little forests remaining in Tabuk City are giving way to corn lands. Notice the corn lands adjoining  the erstwhile forest. It’s a case of corn more precious than  trees.  Photo taken at sitio Casabang in barangay Nambukayan.)

Just to picture how it was way back then, former barangay captain Abelardo Magadang, 74, relates that in the place called  Kapanikian, the bats were such a multitude that the branches of trees they alighted on would break. He adds that back in his youth, when he went fishing in the Mananig River with his tabukol – a net fishing gear –,   he could fill  a standard kerosene can in an hour. In contrast, if he goes fishing now, he would be lucky if he lands 10 fish in a day.

 

(Photo: Those tall trees in the cleared area will eventually go too because local farmers say that corn and rice will  do not grow properly under trees.)

(Photo: With the  hills and mountains of  Nambukayan  deforested,  a large portion of their ricefields could no longer be tilled during the dry season due to lack of irrigation water.)

 

(Photo: Nearly the only trees that are left untouched in the barangay are the acacia trees found in the coffee plantations.)

 Along with the  aquatic life in the Mananig River,  the wildlife in the forest of Nambukayan are just a memory in the minds of residents who were already old enough to remember in the 70s. So are the tall trees in the forest. In fact, according to Eusebio Lunang, 68, a resident of sitio Pao, nobody in the barangay could build a house made of  hard wood now because the only trees that remain in the land are the soft ones. He related that when they built the house of his firstborn in 2001, they have to  go buy and saw a tree growing in the lot of a resident of an adjoining barangay.

 

(Photo: It is ironic that  in the barangay which used to have an abundance of quality wood like narra and molave, residents now build their houses with bamboos and inferior wood.)

Lunang blames the disappearance of the quality wood in the barangay to the advent of the chainsaw in the 70s and likewise the kaingin (slash and burn farming) practice of residents.  With the chainsaw facilitating the cutting and sawing of trees which, with the old tools used to be very laborious, some residents  felled trees not only to construct their houses but for commercial purposes.  This accelerated the decimation of the useful trees in the barangay.

 

(Photo: Clearly,  the generations in Nambukayan preceding these children never considered the conservation of natural resources for the use of generations to come. It is possible that these children in sitio Gumibao do not know the taste of wild boar or deer, animals which used to abound in the area in years gone by.)

Speaking of  how the kaingin  system destroys trees and prevents forests from growing, as the barangay captain way back in the mid-90s, Artemio Gunaban, 62, tried to reverse the trend  through the passage of an ordinance mandating residents to plant their kaingins with fruit trees. According to him, this was in compliance with the government mandate to preserve ecology. The trouble was only a few complied because most of the people were thinking that a land planted to fruit trees could no longer be made into a kaingin in the future.  Gunaban says: “Because of the advocacy of the DENR, the people know of the ill effects of cutting down trees but there is nothing  they could do and we could do because most of them depend on their kaingins for their livelihood.”

The residents of sitio Nansibakan where Gunaban resides already know from experience the  adverse result of cutting  trees down. For decades now, the springs in the village which used to provide their domestic water needs all year round now dry up during summer. That’s when the whole village of 30 households depend on the water system sourced from a spring three kilometers away. The water is not enough to go around so some households go down to sitio Tagul-an which is three kilometers away to fetch their water. At least one family is known to haul water from Bulanao which is 10 kilometers away.

Magadang, Lunang and Gunaban all agree that the natural resources of the barangay would not have disappeared as  quickly as it did if not for the fast growing population. Gunaban: “Back in those days, there were a few people to hunt wild game. The hunters then used to choose the big ones unlike now  when they shoot even the young ones.” Magadang: “If the population did not multiply, we would still have fish in the river and deer in the forest. Now, even the wild chicken have became very scarce because of too many people are trapping them. We just eat vegetables now or buy meat from the market.” Lunang: “With more people hunting and more people eating, what do you expect?”

Magadang  reveals that many people in the barangay have realized the disadvantages of having too many children. Magadang  says that in sitio Pao where families used to have at least five children, young couples now have an average of three to four children..    

Marieta, wife of Lunang, informs that in Nansibakan, there are many acceptors of family planning some of whom had themselves ligated. She adds though that there are still some in the barangay  who still adhere to the old belief that even when one is poor if he has many children, he is rich. I found that out myself during my visit to the adjoining village when  a woman who lives in a small house on stilts, in answer to my question, bared she has 10 children. 

 

(Photo: The Lunangs blame  the introduction of   modern technology, the kaingin system of farming and the rapid increase in population for the dismal state of the natural resources and environment of Nambukayan.)

  

 I am certain that if just like Magadang, Gunaban and Eusebio, all the child-bearing residents of Nambukayan make the connection between the lack of building materials, the altered climate, the near fishless bodies of water, the  streams and springs which dry up during dry spells and the near zero wildlife in the forest on one hand and the population on the other, the small family would become the trend in the barangay. If  they do not and they continue propagating without thought of how this impacts on the environment,  then the  ecological degradation of the barangay would continue until such time that human life in the place becomes extremely difficult or even impossible. 

Posted in Environment Philippines Submission Notes from the north Population Blog
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