Makati City Hall Visit

Preparedness
Jorem Paulo Labao | BS Public Health | 2012-27887 | Block 22

Failing to plan is planning to fail. These are the words that are implied to us during the visit to Makati City Hall last February 13, 2013. The trips objective was to orient us on the dos and donts of Makatis Health Office. The speaker presented to us the evolution of their HEMS or Health Emergency Management System. From the foundational STOPDEATH, it went on for a few years to evolve to HEPR, then finally to HEMS. This program system is designed for a better and efficient way to address certain health emergency situations. This program aims to distribute and assign each of the different aspects of the health office to different jobs and work to do. By this system, there would never be an overlapping of the jobs that are needed to be done. This system is very efficient for it minimizes the risk of chaos that most of the other cities of the Philippines encounter during a crisis. Because of this, many of the developing cities here in our country are now adapting their health management system to this, and I agree to that. The HEMS system amazed me due to its complex simplicity. There would be levels and aspects that are needed in a crisis and different agencies would each have a job according to the aspect they belong to. No miscommunication. No problem dealing with the different problems of health emergency situation for there is someone that is assigned to that area. Not only does the HEMS focus on the health aspect, but it also gives importance to the PsychoSocial aspect of the public. For every crisis there would be people negatively affected, and they would have experienced some kind of mental and emotional distress. With that, the HEMS system has addressed multiple of the important aspect of the public when facing a health emergency. Also shown to us is the CCTV room. Makati has loads of crystal clear CCTVs around the surrounding area. The aim of providing tons of CCTV cameras is for monitoring the public at most hours. This will ensure that there would be at least one eye to watch over the city during the day.

Makati City Hall Visit

When there is a robbery or theft, the CCTV can be zoomed in and follow the person trying to run away whilst contacting the authorities. It can zoom to the extent of showing the plates of runaway vehicles or to see the ID or face of the people involved in this crime. This technological advancement, security has taken another leap for the people of Makati. They also took us to the helipad. This addresses the need for instant rescue operations. With the helipad, the city hall can send personnel, goods, medicine, and food to the areas that are cut off from land and water travel. With these advancements that the Makati government provided, security, safety, and health problems will be surely addressed. The people of Makati will get the best that they can get because their government is working hard for the betterment of the nation and the people they lead instead of the betterment of their own pockets. With this visit, it can truly be seen that ganyan sila sa Makati.