Dr. Rodina Mondragon, Municipal Health Officer of a rural health unit (government-owned health centre) based on Pototan, Iloilo in the Philippines, shares with us how the private sector can work with governments to improve local healthcare systems, and how working with reach52 has impacted her work.
What are some ways the private sector can partner with governments to improve local healthcare
systems?
Private sector partnerships create utilisation of multi-sectoral and multidisciplinary expertise to create health structure efficiency, cost effective use of resources and deliver desired policy outcomes that are of public interest. These are some concrete examples of the value of private- public partnerships:
Task-shifting by upskilling Community Health Workers to engage residents allows us to overcome
traditional access barriers and shortage of traditional health workers in MICs. What do you think contributes to the success and effectiveness of these task-shifting roles?
Training volunteer health workers to educate the public, counsel and conduct advocacy allows us to deliver more services to most people in a short period of time.
The success of this strategy is the capacity of these health workers who come from diverse educational backgrounds to pick up the necessary knowledge and skills required. Understanding where they are coming from, the economics of their family and incentivisation of their effort serves as a motivation to make projects successful.
How do you think innovative digital health tools can help support local health systems in underserved communities?
Digital health tools shorten the process of healthcare delivery, allow inclusion of more people in the grassroots and assist health workers in the analysis of recurring problems from the community level up to the local government unit and national level. Complete and prompt data is important in decision making, reducing delays to interventions and in halting infectious transmissions that can result in a
pandemic.
How has working with reach52 impacted your work providing healthcare to local communities?
One of the pilot reach52 campaigns was the provision of an affordable anti-hypertensive and sugar control medicine delivered to patients' doorsteps. It was a big help to many living far from the town center, especially with the increase in transportation costs. The campaign to provide insulin at a
very low cost was a success as well, and able to lower mortality rates.
On a qovernment level, data on blood pressure allowed us to document the profiles of at-risk patients and plan for a bigger budget to tackle noncommunicable diseases. Deep diving into such campaigns with reach52 made us realise that the local government needs partnerships like these which are high in engagement and low in resources, to provide better health outcomes for more people.