May 28, 2021 — The UP Manila School of Health Sciences (SHS) Extension Campus in Tarlac will officially open its doors to its inaugural intake of midwifery students this August 2021, following the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between UP and the Provincial Government of Tarlac last April 23, 2021.
The SHS is one of the nine degree-granting units of UP Manila that implements a unique ladder-type curriculum comprised of the Diploma in Midwifery, BS Nursing, and Doctor of Medicine. The school’s innovative community-based curriculum integrates the training of the midwife, nurse, and doctor into a single, sequential, and continuous program.
The MOA signing served as the culmination of three years of negotiations between UP and the Province of Tarlac that started in July 2018. UP President Danilo L. Concepcion and Tarlac Governor Susan A. Yap signed the MOA on behalf of their respective institutions. UP Manila Chancellor Dr. Carmencita D. Padilla and Tarlac Vice Governor Carlito S. David served as witnesses.
In his message, President Concepcion provided a historical perspective to the establishment of the SHS Tarlac extension campus. He related that the school was established in 1976 amid the health workforce maldistribution and “brain drain” phenomenon. He related this to the school’s “emphasis on return service [that] ensures the availability of health workers especially in underserved areas.”
Pres. Concepcion also recognized that SHS’s “progressive integrated stepladder curriculum has served as a model of transformative health education and community-based health [professions] training around the world” and that today, SHS “continues to fulfill its mandate to produce competent and socially conscious health professionals at various levels of the Philippine health care system.” A study in 2015 showed that 85-90% of SHS graduates stayed in the country and served at various levels of the health care system.
On the other hand, Chancellor Padilla focused on SHS’s unique features such as its stepladder curriculum, non-traditional recruitment policies, and its return service obligation. She explained that “knowing that health care can be rendered not only by doctors but also by midwives and nurses, the SHS ladder curriculum offered a clear, relevant, and immediate response to the lack of health workforce in the community.”
Chancellor Padilla emphasized that SHS students are directly recruited from communities and that UPCAT is not a requirement for admission. In relation to SHS’s return service policy, she related that the SHS student’s “social contract” with the community guaranteed that students returned to their respective communities (to practice as a midwife, nurse, or doctor).
Dr. Padilla again emphasized SHS’s high retention rate of 85-90% as proof that SHS is “an effective program to address disparities in access to quality health care through the availability and deployment of doctors, nurses, and midwives for practice in underserved areas in the country.”
She thanked Tarlac Governor Susan Yap for the provincial government’s full support, saying that a close collaboration with the local government is a strong feature of the program as validated by the success of four decades of SHS’s existence.
In her message, Governor Yap expressed overwhelming joy over the signing of the MOA. She related how the current COVID-19 pandemic has created an acute shortage of health human resources in primary health care centers which are at the forefront of the local health system. “We crucially need to develop more health professionals who will serve the depressed and underserved areas of the province particularly geographically isolated and depressed areas.”
Gov. Yap provided a critique of the current health science curriculum of most health science education institutions (HEI). She said that practically all HEIs follow a health science curriculum oriented towards the health care needs of foreign societies. However, the establishment of SHS Tarlac, she stated, will address this gap by developing health human resource directed towards rural practice.
SHS was established in Leyte in 1976. In 2008, the first SHS extension campus was opened in Baler, Aurora. In 2010, the SHS extension campus in Koronadal City, South Cotabato was inaugurated. The establishment of the SHS extension campus in Tarlac was approved by the UP Board of Regents last February 2021. To date, the SHS has produced 2276 midwives, 520 nurses, and 200 doctors; the overwhelming majority of whom are practicing in the country, mostly in their communities of origin.
The SHS extension campus in Tarlac Province is in San Isidro, Tarlac City in a newly reconstructed building within a 27-hectare lot owned by the Province of Tarlac. Approximately 2200 square meters of aggregate floor area will be for the exclusive use of the school.
Dr. Filedito Tandico
Published in UP Manila Healthscape Special COVID-19 Issue No. 27
Related article: UP-Manila School of Health Sciences extension campus to rise in Tarlac
