The Visayas Primary Healthcare Services, Inc. is implementing a project supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) ReachHealth Project administered by the RTI International to provide technical assistance to the Local Government Units (LGUs) of Bogo City, Tabuelan, San Remigio and Medellin, in the implementation of various capacity-building activities to support community-based COVID-19 response to delay, contain the transmission of COVID-19, and mitigate the effects of the pandemic in their localities.
In order to start collaboration with the San Remigio LGU, project team members Petty Orbeta de Castro, Edgar Gahisan and Irish Grace Ramirez visited San Remegio on August 24, 2020. They met with Municipal Health Officer, Dr. Orleta B. Ursal, Municipal Mayor Mariano R. Martinez, and Jan Raymund E. Frasco of the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (LDRRMO).
The project introduced the project to the government officials. A two-page list of project activities prepared by the project team was given to them which was discussed. The three officials recommended that instead of having only 10 barangays for their Barangay Emergency Health Response Teams (BHERTs) to be trained, as provided for in the grant agreement, the project will also train BHERTs from other barangays while meeting the target number of participants which is 80 or 8 participants per barangay in the grant agreement. The municipality has a total of 27 barangays. They also recommended to have four participants from each barangay BHERT to attend the BHERTs training. One BHERT is comprised of the barangay captain, a barangay health worker or barangay nutrition scholar, a nurse and a barangay tanod.
Mr. Keannu Arnoco, Provincial Technical Officer of the ReachHealth Project, during the said meeting said that the RTI will conduct additional trainings for the BHERTs from barangays that will not be covered by the barangays reached by the VPHCS team, so that the BHERTs from all 27 barangays will be trained. It was further agreed that contact tracers will be included in the BHERTs training. There are now 197 contact tracers.
The meeting set a project orientation with the Association of Barangay Councils of San Remigio on August 28, 2020.
