A different home care
FOR many with aging or chronically sick family members, home care has been resorted to for economic reasons. Hospital care, as everyone knows, can run up to millions of pesos. Thus, in our Facebook walls we occasionally read a friend's post asking where they can buy second-hand hospital beds and who can recommend caregivers who give home service.
Except that, in present-day homes, an extra hospital bed can take up a lot of space.
"Many houses are not designed for such care," said Rudolph O. Ambrosio, a respiratory therapist, who while raised here had practiced his profession for 14 years straight out of college in the national capital.
"Our changing culture, smaller families with the children too busy at work to provide for the family, unlike before when only one works for the family,
ngayon dalawa na talaga. Who will be left with these patients?" he asked. Oftentimes, the solution resorted to is one quits his or her job, thus reducing the family income while having to spend for medical care.
This almost unnoticed but very valuable service is the niche that Ambrosio has pioneered in Davao City since returning to Davao City in 2010 and bring up his family here the way Davao City has nurtured him as a child.
It's called subacute post-hospital service, providing medical health home care away in a facility designed for this: The Living Saints Geriatric and Subacute Care Center at Magnolia Heights right beside the Shrine of the Holy Infant Jesus of Prague at Shrine Hills. This is the only such facility in the whole country. All others are homes for the aged, which do not focus on the sick and their recovery or comfort.
The Living Saints is a non-stock, non-profit corporation, he said, that has been getting some help from Ambrosio's classmates and friends from Ateneo de Davao, where he spent his formative years.
It has been seven years since Ambrosio first introduced the idea of sub-acute care in Davao City, and four years since the permanent center at Shrine Hills opened.
As defined, "subacute care is a level of care needed by a patient who does not require hospital acute care, but who requires more intensive skilled nursing care than is provided to the majority of patients in a skilled nursing facility."
The facility that Ambrosio runs is manned by registered nurses, paramedics, and caregivers, while medical care by doctors is only through referrals, and only when needed. The center also does not have any laboratory facilities as this is taken care of through referrals to hospitals and medical laboratories.
It is because of these (no doctors on the payroll and in the bill, and no laboratory facilities to invest on and maintain) that subacute care costs much less than hospital confinement. Plus, it minimizes disruption in the lives of family members who have to earn to provide for the patient.
"Imagine taking care of a sick person at home, yung pagpupunas pa lang ng patient is already very difficult," Ambrosio said. "And imagine if you are the patient, would you really be happy na 'punaspunas' lang, hindi mo ba gugustuhin na makaligo ka ng maayos?"
It's their concern for the comfort and overall respect for life that Ambrosio takes pride in saying that they are among the very few health facilities that has a full body mechanical lifts and bath tub.
"We even have hot shower and saline soaking for patients with bedsores," he said. "Saline baths also prevent bedsores and facilitate healing of skin diseases that is common among the elderly."
But contrary to what the center's name may conjure, The Living Saints also accepts young patients who require subacute care. Their services cover palliative, respite, and geriatric care; post-stroke respiratory therapy and rehabilitation, physical therapy, and speech therapy, and; sleep/ titration study.
The age range of their patients is from below 20 to 102 years old and they have from 24-28 patients a day.
The center attends to a patient in a holistic manner where the medical, physical, therapeutic, and psychological needs are all considered.
"People in this kind of care, those with chronic diseases, they need psychological and emotional support," he said, citing as example an active executive who may suddenly be paralyzed by stroke and can no longer do things for himself. It's a situation that can drive a person to depression or greater debilitating disease.
Ambrosio admitted that at first, hospitals were antagonistic to his idea of setting up a subacute care center as this is seen as a threat to the profitability of a hospital. But after a while more and more doctors are beginning to understand that by having a center attend to these patients outside the hospital, the hospital can take in more patients requiring acute care or those needing immediate medical attention for a short period of time. As a result, he's been getting referrals a year after he established his home care here in 2010.
"Why put a chronic patient in an acute care facility?" he asked, saying that doing so will just deprive those who badly need acute care of a hospital bed. It's a fact that there is a shortage of hospital beds in the country.
What Ambrosio is pushing for now is that subacute care be accredited with the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (Philhealth). With subacute care covered, this will reduce the burden of caring for a sick or dying kin, a burden hundreds bear in silence.
"I really have the feeling that this advocacy will not only help a few, but majority who need this kind of care," he said.
He has been knocking on some doors to push this agenda for almost a decade now, but no one in government has been responsive. He is hoping that this time, his plea will be heard.
Incidentally, Ambrosio is not going into this advocacy without earning his chops.
Ambrosio was awarded the 2014 Outstanding Professional of the year in the field of Respiratory Therapy by the Professional Regulations Commission in awarding rites held last June 20, 2014 at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC).
This award is given to professionals who have demonstrated the highest degree of competence, contributed significantly to the advancement of the profession and to the effective discharge of the profession’s social responsibility.
The Living Saints can be contacted through telephone number (082) 297-6245, 09189005733, or email mdlabmedcorp@yahoo.com.