Area of Focus: Maternal and Child Health
The eighth (8th) of its Human Milk Bank (HMB) projects, in its ten years of partnership with the Rotary Club of Daejeon-Jeil, District 3680, was formally turned over on August 15, 2023 to the Region II Trauma and Medical Center in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya.
In previous years, the club has donated HMBs to hospitals in Quezon City, Manila, Naga, Baguio, Pampanga, Cagayan Valley and Cagayan de Oro.
The first HMB of the Club was installed at the Fabella Maternity Hospital in Manila in October 2013, where, records show, about 300 babies are born every day. The HMB at the said hospital is still in operation.
HMBs pasteurizes human milk collected from donor mothers, bottled or canned and shared with babies everywhere in the country where they are needed.
In fact, the first 300 bottles of pasteurized milk from the HMB of Fabella were sent to Tacloban and Ormoc Cities in the Visayas Region after the “Yolanda” category 5 storm devastated the said areas in Nov 2013 and destroyed many of its hospitals.
RC Holy Spirit was also a partner of the Club in its HMB project in the Bayombong Hospital.
HCP Jigs de Belen, together with HCP Gerald Gamboa of RC Bayombong Capital led the ceremonies marking the turnover of the HMB and the cutting of the inaugural ribbon.
The Turnover was originally scheduled on August 5, 2023, with the RC Daejeon-Jeil and RC Holy Spirit but had to be cancelled at the last minute because of storm Egay which made the road trip to Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, an eight-hour drive by car, not safe, particularly along the Sta Fe zigzag road going up to the mountain peak of Dalton pass and on the way down to the Aritao town which according to radio reports had landslides.
Dr. Dan Alejandro of the Region 2 Trauma Medical Center, received the HMB project donation and in his acceptance speech, profusely thanked Rotary for the HMB which he said will help several hundreds of babies in the region.