A helping hand
WASHINGTON SYCIP, the 95-year- old icon of the bookkeeping profession in the Philippines, has long maintained that to alleviate poverty, which affects millions of Filipinos nationwide, there are three areas that need to be improved: basic education, cost of credit to the poor and rural health.
But, among these three, he is upfront to admit, whether in an interview, in a speech, or in a write-up in a newspaper, that he is still in the process of brushing up on the latter.
For instance, in one speech he delivered in 2009, he said, “I am still trying to learn more about rural health, the third most important area for reducing poverty.”
One way Mr. SyCip is taking part in the movement to reform rural health, and the health sector in general, is through the Zuellig Family Foundation, on whose board he sits as a trustee.
“As a good friend, he is concerned about Philippine problems involving the poor management of health issues in the countryside,” Mr. SyCip said of Stephen Zuellig, honorary chairman of the Zuellig Group of Companies, in an interview with BusinessWorld.
“Stephen Zuellig, the best strategic thinker I have met, has kindly set a fund in my name with this Foundation to combine the improvement of rural health with the other factors to reduce poverty,” Mr. SyCip wrote in his 90th- birthday piece for BusinessWorld.
Zuellig Family Foundation (ZFF) is a non-profit organization founded by the Zuellig family, which owns a multitude of enterprises in various industries, such as health care and pharmaceuticals and industrial supplies and solutions.
It began in 1997, but, back then, it was known as the Pharmaceutical Health and Family Foundation. Its focus and scope shifted over the years — from addressing health requirements of communities in Laguna, advocating for public health policy reforms, and training of health professionals according to best practices to improving the poor’s health outcomes.
In order to address more effectively the challenges in the country’s health sector, ZFF has decided to concentrate on strengthening the capabilities of the public health care systems and improving access to health care of the poor especially in rural areas.
Mr. SyCip is gladdened by what the foundation has accomplished since becoming a part of it. “They’ve been very successful” in decreasing the number of mothers dying from causes related to pregnancy, he said.
Year 2015, the foundation stated in its annual report, was a significant one. It marked the end of the first three-operational cycle during which it implemented the “Health Change Model” in 300 local government units ( LGUs).
The model, which was launched in 2009, is based on the idea that the local health leadership is the key to changing systems and inclusive programs leading to better health outcomes for the poor. The foundation uses maternal mortality ratio to gauge the model’s success.
“At 640 LGUs, we ended the cycle with 340 more. In fact, even our 10-year plan (2013-2022) target of 485 was exceeded,” the foundation said. A growing number of the prototype LGUs, it noted, reported no maternal death. The lack of trained midwives is one reason why maternal death occurs.
On several occasions, Mr. SyCip lamented the fact that numerous Filipino medical professionals choose to work high- paying jobs abroad than serve their countrymen here. “This is really very sad,” he said in an interview with Asian Institute of Management, which is available on his Web site.
“When I see Filipino doctors in America and they tell me the things we should do to address the problems we have in the health sector, I tell them: ‘ Don’t talk about what we should do. Do it yourself. You should go back to the Philippines and do it’,” he said in a previous interview with BusinessWorld.
Mr. SyCip has also been lending a helping hand in improving the quality of health care by providing financial support on his own. For instance, he chipped in P500,000 to help bankroll the installation of the Amputee Ward at the Philippine General Hospital Rehabilitation Medicine Department. The ward is where mostly impoverished amputees, a considerable number of which come from provinces, dwell for the time being as they await their turn to be fitted with prosthetics or as they undergo therapy.
Mr. SyCip has supported the Walking Assistance Learning Key ( WALK) Unit of the same department. WALK assists amputees as well as survivors of stroke in restoring their ambulatory skills.