SORSOGON CITY -- With P500 incentive to every mother who would deliver their babies in government hospitals, health authorities hope to lower the maternal deaths in the province of Sorsogon in the next three years.

        This was the concept being promoted by the Women’s Health and Safe Motherhood Program (WHSMP) now being implemented by the Provincial Health Office and the Department of Health as they embarked on the new phase of the program started in 2006.

        Dr. Edgar Garcia, Sorsogon Provincial Health Officer, said under the program mothers who deliver their babies in government hospitals and birthing facilities will receive P500 as incentive which they could use to buy medicines and other necessities during delivery.

        He said the purpose of the incentive was to lure pregnant mothers especially those who belong in the lower income bracket to avail of government facilities instead of just relying on ‘hilots”.

        Based on statistics from the Provincial Health Office seventy per cent of pregnant mothers in the province deliver their babies without the benefit of professional health care and rely solely on “hilots”.

        Garcia said that as a result Sorsogon had the highest number of maternal deaths in the Bicol region, which was also the second region with highest maternal deaths nationwide, three years ago.

        But he clarified that the program did not aim to put “hilots” out of business but to draw them into the mainstream of health care program.

        The health official said the main objective of the program was to reverse the health seeking behavior of pregnant mothers especially those in the villages who usually seek the assistance of “hilots” in delivering their babies.

        Although we acknowledge the help of our “hilots”, there are instances when complex situations are beyond their capability that sometimes result to the death of mother, and even the child, or both, Garcia stressed.

        Based on the records of the PHO, maternal deaths usually result from hemorrhage or bleeding and eclampsia which is a serious complication in pregnancy characterized by convulsions.

        Usually eclampsia occurs after the onset of pre-eclampsia though sometimes no pre-eclamptic symptoms are recognizable.

        The convulsions may appear before, during or after labor, though cases of eclampsia after just 20 weeks of pregnancy have been recorded.

        “This will also empower our disadvantaged women as they will now have the option to choose between the traditional and the scientific methods in their delivery,” he said.

        Aside from the P500-per-delivery incentive to the mothers, the program would also give P1,000-per-mother incentive to the health team, composed of the midwife, barangay health worker and the “hilot, that would provide health care to the mother, Garcia added.

        He said the incentive would encourage active participation of the “hilots” in the program as it would provide them income and not “sabotage” its implementation by “pirating” pregnant women away from it.

        The team would conduct “masterlisting” of pregnant women, provide pre-natal check-up, follow-up and post-natal check-ups.

        This would put our “hilots” in the mainstream of health care program, Garcia explained.

        But a midwife, Merla Alaurin, who has been working for more than ten years at the barangay health center in Bgy. Bibincahan, Sorsogon City said a problem might arise where there are more than one “hilot” in a village as they would be competing with the single “hilot” who would be included in the program.

        She also said that based on their experience the main problem was not the inaccessibility or inavailability of hospital facilities but the inherent stubborness of many mothers, their husbands or their in-laws who preferred to give birth in their houses instead of going to hospitals.

        The program, worth P79 million, is funded through a World Bank loan extended to the national government which has a timeframe of five years starting 2006.

        Also included in the implementation are the construction of birthing facilities in six municipalities of Pilar, Bacon, Juban, Sta. Magdalena, Barcelona and Bulusan which do not have public hospitals.