BARMM hires over 100 midwives to help in COVID-19 frontlines

A total of 111 midwives have been recently hired by the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao to temporarily help in the frontlines as the region grapples with the COVID-19 threat.

Dr. Saffrullah Dipatuan of the Ministry of Health (MOH) of the BARMM said as he swore in the new hires in Cotabato City last week that in the meantime the deployment of these health warriors (midwives) will be to help in the frontlines.

But he clarified that after the pandemic the midwives will help fill in the great lack of health workers in the barangays, especially in the island-provinces of the region.

He said that 73 of the hired midwives will be assigned in Maguindanao province, 38 will be assigned in the province of Basilan, and Lamitan City.

The provinces of Maguindanao, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Basilan and Lanao del Sur; the cities of Marawi, Cotabato and Lamitan; and the 63 villages in six towns of North Cotabato compose the BARMM.   .

Dipatuan added that the long-term priority program of the MOH-BARMM is to assign one trained midwife in each community in the BARMM.

“The program is intended to provide easy access to health and social services of the residents,” he said. 

He pointed out that the hiring of more midwives by the MOH will continue as part of efforts in boosting the BARMM’s health program.

On the other hand, Dr. Ehsan D. Paudac, the head of the Midwife in Every Community in BARMM (MECBA), said “with this program each personnel of MECBA-1 and MECBA-2 batches will receive P10,000 as Emergency Relief Assistance Allowance (ERRA) provided by MOH-BARMM.”

Meanwhile, Dipatuan stressed that long-term goal of the MECABA is to have one midwife in every health station in the more than 2,000 barangays in the region.

The MECBA, he said, “is an old program of the MOH, which started last year and was temporarily put to a halt because of the pandemic Covid 19.” —LBG, GMA News