The Department of Health Bicol Center for Health Development (DOH Bicol CHD) is set to launch the country’s first ever Community-based House-to-house Mass Philippine Package for Essential Non-Communicable Diseases Interventions (PhilPEN) risk assessment activity on March 1 to March 31, 2023.
It is a region-wide simultaneous campaign together with the help of the Local Government Units (LGU) in the region, Barangay Health Workers (BHW’s), nurses, midwives, DOH-CHD personnel and other trained individuals.
According to Dr. Monrey Isaiah Mancilla, DOH Bicol Non-Communicable Diseases Cluster Head, PhilPEN is an activity that will assess the presence or absence of risk factors for the early detection, prevention, and management of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs).
“Actually ang non-communicable diseases ay silent pandemic ‘yan. So kung mapapansin ninyo, ‘yung bilang ng mga taong namamatay number one ay dahil sa non-communicable diseases,” he added.
The campaign will only cover ages 20 years old and above of every family household and they aim to target 70% or 2.4 million people during the campaign in the Bicol Region.
Mancilla adds the campaign may be continued after its conduct this March.
“Bale depende ito sa mapag-uusapan ulit namin. Definitely mag-uusap kami after, kung ano ‘yung mga what went through, ano ‘yung mga room for improvement. Pag-uusapan ulit namin ‘yan depende sa need. Ideally naman kasi all year round or annually ginagawa naman namin itong risk assessment kasi baka ‘yung risk mo last year wala, pero this year nagbago ka ng behavior”, Dr. Mancilla said.
Meanwhile, he anticipates that through Bicol’s implementation of the first house-to-house risk assessment, other regions may adopt the same which will help prevent the increase of deaths due to non-communicable diseases. I Aimee Mae Gizelle Sesno and Jemimah So
Photo: Ada Almonguera