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Saturday, September 09, 2006
Mayor blames teachers, parents for worms among school kids
Admonishing teachers, parents and even Cebu City’s youth officials, an embarrassed Mayor Tomas Osmeña said they are partly to be blamed for the high incidence of intestinal worm infection among the city’s youth.
Osmeña said he was shocked to learn that at least 66 percent of the 95,000 public elementary school students in the city, or seven out of 10 students, have intestinal worms.
He blamed this on parents, and school and barangay officials. Next year, Osmeña said, the City will conduct a survey to find out which of the barangays have the highest number of children infected with intestinal worms.
The mayor vowed to publish the list of the barangays with the best and worst performance in the “War on Worms” project.
The best performers, he said, will be given awards while the worst performers “will have to suffer the humiliation of being the worst.”
Embarrassed
“I was appalled to hear that two-thirds of our students have parasites in them. Many of our parents and teachers here are remiss in their responsibility in training the children in proper hygiene and sanitation, which caused this condition in them,” Osmeña said during the launching of the project yesterday.
“I am really embarrassed by this. Sixty-six percent? I thought this only occurs in the poorest places. Maybe Bangladesh or East Timor, but Cebu City?” he told reporters after the program.
The Sangguniang Kabataan (SK), whose concerns include the health and nutrition of the youth, is partly to be blamed also, the mayor said.
“Our SK is not active at all and I don’t know why they spend so much on picnics and outings when they cannot provide the services and programs for the sector they represent. So you can see the values of some people,” Osmeña further said.
Apart from the P2.2 million appropriation for the launching of the “Gubat Batok Bitok” program of the City Government and the University of the Philippines-National Institute of Health (UP-NIH), the City will spend up to P16 million to sustain the mass deworming of students in the next five years.
UP-NIH Deputy Director Vicente Belizario, Jr. said he himself was shocked to learn the results of the survey they conducted in the city last July.
“This is shocking because in this modern age, it is not acceptable to have children infected with intestinal worms because there are technologies available for infection control,” Belizario said.
Training
Public school students will be given two doses of the deworming tablet every year for the next five years to ensure complete elimination of the worms in the body.
“But this war is not going to be won by just treatment alone. We have to be consistent in training the students to wash their hands regularly and for the City Government to improve environmental sanitation,” Belizario added.
Belizario, the mayor, his wife Margot, United Nations Children’s Fund Country Program for Children Cebu City coordinator Nigel Paul Villarete and education officials distributed the tablets to the students of the Guadalupe Elementary School yesterday morning.
During the program, the mayor scolded the school officials for ignoring Belizario’s instructions when they proceeded with the distribution of the tablets without washing their hands.
The program was disrupted after the mayor asked all the officials on stage to wash their hands before they resume with the distribution. (LCR)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (September 9, 2006 issue)
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