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Advocating Newborn Screening
For long years now, the Hablon Toastmasters Club, Iloilo Professional Toastmasters Club and Bacolod City High School Class' 82 Alumni Association spearhead the holding of Newborn Screening Week every first week of October.
It is a great opportunity for St. Joseph School (Iloilo), Inc. to be invited once again to join the activities sponsored by the said organizations ensuring the realization of the significance of the screening procedure.
Advocating Newborn Screening includes contests such as Quiz bowl (for midwives), Essay writing (College Level) and Extemporaneous Speaking (High School level) held at Robinsons Place Iloilo, October 7, 2008.
But what is Newborn Screening?
Newborn Screening is a simple procedure that can prevent serious complications of undiagnosed or congenital disorders in infants and is ideally done on the 48th - 72nd hour of life. "With a few drops of blood from your baby, we can already identify if your baby has congenital mental retardation or even death if left untreated. These disorders must be detected and treatment must be started before the onset of clinical signs and symptoms. Newborn Screening is very important because babies with these metabolic disorders look normal at birth," said Dr. Carmencita D. Padilla, Newborn Screening Reference Center Director
On April 6, 2004, the Newborn Screening started its operations here in the Philippines in 24 Metro Manila Hospitals. For the record, as of today, more than 1,800 hospitals are collecting blood samples for newborn screening. Thus, Iloilo City hospitals are not exempted in catering such screening.
Among the disorders being tested and identified in the screening are Congenital Hypothyroidism, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, Phenylketonuria, Galactosemia and G6PD def. Moreover, newborns found positive for any of these disorders are referred immediately to specialist in which it will be treated and if possible be cured.
The Department of Health and the National Institutes of Health embark on this program. With the core goal of screening all Filipino newborns for more common life-threatening heritable disorders. Thus, Republic Act 9288 was created to mandate that all babies born are given the opportunity to be screened for some metabolic disorders.
The cost of newborn screening is P550 to P600. If you are a beneficiary of PhilHealth member, you only need to pay P50 to P100 for newborn screening because of the PhilHealth Newborn Care Package. The point is, at any cost whether P500 or P50 or any amount and you are a mother, you would not deprive your baby not to undergo newborn screening because there is a great assurance that through this screening, newborns can be detected if they have disorder. And if there is, great possibility of constant cure and immediate treatment is the best answer, not to wait for years to detect the disorders of your child.
I would like to commend the organizers of the Advocating Newborn Screening under the leadership of Dr. Anastacio S. Rufon and Jan Stanley Diaresco, Area Governor of the Hablon Toastmaster Club for a job well done. Congrats to all the Toastmasters!
Congratulations to Josephians Jeremiah Claudine Calacal and Bea Patricia Lataquin for doing great in the said activity. Kudos for a job very well done!