Eversley Childs hospital marks 85 years in Cebu

Eversley Childs Sanitarium opened the month-long celebration of its 85th founding anniversary last Monday with various activities lined up for the month of May.

The celebration started at 6:30 a.m. with a motorcade by the management and staff of Eversley Childs Sanitarium and General Hospital, followed by a flag ceremony and parade of colors that marked the opening of the sportsfest and parlor games.

There was also an Open House in the sanitarium’s museum and archives.

A two-day orientation on smoke-free hospitals in Cebu started yesterday at the Mango Park Hotel.

“The Doctor Is In” show of PTV 4 will feature various departments of Eversley Childs Sanitarium in a segment “Ganon Dapat ang Ospital” today.

A Buntis Festival at the hospital’s social hall, a patient’s day out capacity- building for leprosy patients and free ligation will be held on May 21 and 23, respectively.

The celebration will culminate with a Thanksgiving Mass and a dinner fellowship with Health Secretary Janette Garin and Assistant Secretary Pauline Ubial at the Cebu Grand Convention Center.

Dr. Lope Ma. Carabaña, the Chief of Hospital, said that Eversley Childs Sanitarium in barangay Jagobiao, Mandaue City is the only Department of Health (DOH)-retained hospital in northern Cebu with an approximate area of 52 hectares.

Last year, the hospital became the first DOH-retained hospital in the Visayas and Mindanao to be awarded with ISO certification.

In 2013, the Eversley hospital established the Cebu Treatment and Rehabilitation Center. In 2012, they opened the Museum and Archives to the public and received local and international recognition.

The PhilHealth accreditation, turnover and conversion of the CDC building to OPD building and the establishment of the Multi-Drug Resistant

Tuberculosis Treatment Center were created in 2011.

The hospital also received Red Orchid Awards for its anti-smoking advocacy and Smoking cessation Clinic; outstanding award for its Newborn

Screening Program and achiever’s award for the Public-Private Mixed Dots Program of the Department of Health.
“We want the people to know the achievements of the hospital or how far we have come in terms of services. Hansen’s disease (leprosy) is no longer feared by many as this is curable and we are now treating only few Hansenites,” said Carabaña.

He said that before people feared being infected with leprosy but not anymore, according to hospital doctors because the disease can be cured in a minimum of six months and patients can be treated at home.

Dr. Phytagoras Zerna, Chief of Clinics, said tuberculosis is even more contagious than leprosy. Zerna said half of the 125 leprosy patients were supposed to be discharged but they preferred to stay as they had nowhere else to go, while others don’t know how to get home after staying there for decades.

It was in 1930 when Executive Order No. 352 established Eversley Childs Sanitarium with an authorized bed capacity of 500 and with an original mandate as treatment, care and rehabilitation center for persons affected with leprosy.

But in 1994, the DOH called for the redirection of roles and responsibilities of Eversley Childs Sanitarium to also provide out-patient and in-patient services aside from being the lead agency in the National Leprosy Control Program.

The Eversley Childs Sanitarium later became a licensed secondary category general hospital in 2002 and assumed the expanded role as a general hospital with 50-bed capacity for the major services – Family Medicine, Pediatrics, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Surgery.

In the future, three 3-story buildings will rise within the hospital compound — the Emergency Room, Operating Room and Delivery Room Complex; a building for administrative offices and another for clinical wards and private rooms.

The hospital will also create a Newborn Screening and Diagnostic Laboratory, a Dialysis Center and Women and Children’s Protection Center.

Carabaña hopes that the bill submitted by Rep. Luigi Quisumbing that seeks to increase the bed capacity from 50 to 100 will be approved.

The hospital, established in 1930, was named after Eversley Childs, an American philanthropist who helped Governor Leonard Wood to isolate and put into a care center people infected with leprosy.

The hospital compound became a small town with its own mayor and councilors, and a school for children and adults. /CORRESPONDENT NORMAN V. MENDOZA