UP frat brings hope to wheelchair-bound

It took research, a lot of work and coordination among brothers in the Philippines, the United States and other parts of the world, but the dream is at hand.

Phi Kappa Mu, the premier medical fraternity of the UP College of Medicine, and California-based Free Wheelchair Mission (FWM) are distributing 550 wheelchairs for disabled indigents in the first run of the PHI Empowerment through Mobility Project.

Dr. Rufino Co, a PHI brother practicing in California, was the first to broach the idea on the fraternity’s online community.

In 2004, the World Health Organization estimated that one in every 10 Filipinos suffered from some form of disability.

Although the number of Filipino quadriplegics and paraplegics is hard to estimate, the picture is especially bleak considering the economy. A wheelchair in the Philippines easily costs P5,000, something low-income families can ill afford.

Co thought of partnering with FWM, which has so far distributed 250,000 wheelchairs to needy patients in developing countries. 

After much coordination with other PHI members in the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) and with Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral, the fraternity is all set to go.

“We are making this a continuing endeavor. It will take some work to get the next shipment of wheelchairs but we are determined to be a constant partner of FWM,” said Superior Exemplar Roland Joseph Dugay Tan (PHI 2002).

Current PHI members and alumni, led by Dr. Manuel Chua Chiaco Jr., president of the Phi Kappa Mu Alumni Association, will help assemble and distribute the wheelchairs in cooperation with the office of Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, the Philippine College of Surgeons and other NGOs, hospitals and charities.

The PHI Empowerment through Mobility Project kicks off the 75th anniversary celebration of the fraternity.

It is only the latest in a long line of PHI’s community service projects. In 1979, PHI established a service arm called Pagkalinga sa Kalusugan ng Mamamayan (PAGKALMA) to formally organize what it had been doing years before then: free medical missions, community assistance, project donations and the like.

Members serve in various ways, including extending free medical and surgical services to remote areas in Luzon and the Visayas and spearheading blood drives to replenish the stores of the PGH Blood Bank.

PHI also holds an annual Operation Gift of Smile in Palawan, providing medical-surgical services to repair cleft lips and palates for children.

Many laboratories and classrooms in the UP College of Medicine were also built with PHI’s help.