SU president highlights role of healthcare in nation-building

By Rachelle M. Nessia

Thursday 29th of March 2012

DUMAGUETE CITY, March 29 (PIA) -- Silliman University President Dr. Ben Malayang III said healthcare professionals played a vital role in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

“You have among you experts, decision-makers and individuals of influence. …This is where you can position yourself strategically as professionals equipped with the academic credentials, training, and commitment to patient care,” Dr. Malayang told an audience of nurse professionals during the 9th Annual National Conference of the Asian American Pacific Island Nurses Association (AAPINA) on March 22 to 24, 2012 during his speech in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

The university president quoted data from the World Health Organization (WHO) which puts nursing and the healthcare professions as “a strategic ally in the achievement of the eight-point MDG.”

WHO earlier reported that the migration of healthcare professionals has led to “severe health workforce shortages” in 57 countries across the globe, with most of them in Asia and Africa.

Malayang pointed out the abundance of nurses in the Philippines and the lack of opportunities for them to “practice professionally and be compensated appropriately.”

He said that one contributing factor to this is the traditionalist view of the profession which finds nurses in the hospital setting only.

“But we know how nurses of today have become. They are products of nurses who are educators and researchers,” he said.

The President concluded his speech with his thoughts on nurses: “You breathe life to an administration of a set of instructions that you have come to memorize from college and work. Without crossing the line and compromising ethics and procedures, you put an extra effort to let your patient feel that like her or him, you too feel hurt and need care, in the same way that you can help in the healing process and the provision of care.”

This year’s AAPINA conference was organized together with the Silliman University College of Nursing Alumni Association International. (RMN/PIA Negros Oriental with reports from Mark Raygan Garcia)