IN OUR local government units, salaries can get the biggest chunk of budgets that leave little for actual services. I’ve heard that the rich LGUs, or those in the first- to third-class brackets, are permitted to allocate up to about 45 percent of their annual budgets for salaries. However, the poor LGUs, those in the fourth to sixth class brackets, are allowed around 55-percent salary cap in their budgets.
And even with scanty budget, many LGUs can qualify to be a department of public works and highways with their priorities as contract is the buzzword and infrastructure is the password to easy approval from authorities. How much of what is left then is channeled to social services and operating expenses of service agencies? It may be worth a peek into your own LGU budgets. Contrary to local experience, provision of social welfare, health care and education and culture services easily add up to around 70 percent of municipal expenditures in Finland. And I will qualify that: services that are client/patient-centered and of high quality.
I appreciated fully the integration and inclusiveness of the service facility when we visited the Hippos Day Care Center. A certain ratio for teachers and social workers to children is observed. It was a regular daycare center but children with special needs are accommodated there. Even a boy breathing through a tracheostomy tube was playing with a (healthier) kid. A calm girl with cerebral palsy occasionally twitching to the rhythm of her favorite children’s music was in the same institution as children who were wired and energetic. They had educational materials all over, a small stage for theater plays, many rooms to experience variety of fun and learning, toys and a wide playground for the kids to enjoy childhood.
Children, both restful and restless, were in harmony and gaiety. In here, kids may grow up to be more aware of physically challenged people and become sensitive to their conditions, not to endow pity but acceptance and understanding. It made me wonder how the kids in my neighborhood feel in our shanty-looking daycare with a capable but overworked daycare teacher and no playground to enjoy. They may be enjoying as innocent kids doing daycare activities but we all know of course, they deserve better and more.
That afternoon, we went to the university hospital maternity ward. I was surprised that the maternity beds didn’t have stirrups as each bed in our training hospital did. Lithotomy position was still the common positioning for the women, but maybe the birthing beds can just be adjusted for the mother’s ease. I asked though if the mothers were allowed to give birth in positions other than supine. A midwife said the mother’s comfort is considered, some give birth standing or kneeling (or polvistua in Finnish). (While nurses are common assistants in the obstetric ward for us, there it would be the midwives who actually finish nursing degrees for 3 years and continue on to midwifery for another 1.5 years.) Husbands are allowed to be in the maternity room to provide support to the wife. The atmosphere is tailored to the patient’s reassurance.
In healthcare institutions, there is a patient ombudsman who informs the patients of their rights and assists in complaints and succors the patient in times of health professional negligence.
On coming to Finland, we heard about stereotyped traits of the Finns: reserved, cold, emotionless, and boring; while we Filipinos bask in positive stereotypes of being sociable, friendly, accommodating, hospitable, and caring.
But when we look at our service institutions and services rendered, we may see the complete opposite. Ironically, of all places, hospitality is sometimes hard to find in our hospitals where many complaints arise. And all the while the Filipinos who are stereotyped to be warm, friendly and caring find it hard to be so in acknowledged and supposed service-oriented institutions. Our overwhelming cultural values in relating with others do not traverse our formal selves. But when foreigners are encountered, our best again is shown. Sadly.
If only we radiate integrity and be who we are, consistently caring and warm not only outside the workplace but also at work, not only in informal settings but also in formal, not only to foreigners but most specially to fellow Filipinos, then more Filipinos will be happily healthier and rightly served.
The Finns stereotyped to be cold and emotionless aren’t so in service institutions that we visited. And the systems installed in these institutions are so responsive to patients or clients, constantly reinvented, to make sure the best services are rendered efficiently.
It may be better to be stereotyped negatively but in actual situations proven wrong and looked up for high quality and client-centered services than stereotyped positively but in actual situations looked down as otherwise.
We have the values deep inside us. We just have to be true to ourselves. Always and everywhere.