Nursing Faculty volunteer in the National Vaccination Days

Heeding the call of the government for the need of volunteers, faculty members of the NWU Nursing Department joined in the recently concluded National Vaccination Days on November 29 – December 1, 2021. Twenty faculty and 2 office staff were sent to two different vaccination areas—Divine Word College of Laoag and Laoag City General Hospital.

This was in response to a Memorandum from the Office of the Executive Director of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) No. 211, series of 2021, providing the Interim Guidelines on the Voluntary Participation of Postgraduate/Undergraduate Interns, Clinical Clerks and Fourth-Year Nursing Students in the COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment and Vaccination program. Though originally intended for Level 4 students of the department, with most of their requirements still in the process of completion, the faculty and staff decided to step up to the challenge and be the volunteers instead.

A letter signed by the head of the Department, Prof. Charliemane A. Bullalayao, was forwarded to the Office of the Laoag City Mayor Michael Marcos Keon, expressing the willingness to offer help and support for the program.

“Mayor Keon has positively accepted our request for volunteerism. We processed it on November 29 and eventually, he approved it and they were the ones who coordinated it with the City Health Office (CHO). As I was the officer-in-charge during that time, then I wrote a letter informing the president of the acceptance of the volunteerism and he was very glad for the initiative which we made,” said Prof. Bullalayao. After the request was approved, he created the schedules and assigned areas for all the faculty members and officially started on the second day.

“There was a little bit of delay in the processing of our documents so we only attended November 30 and December 1 from 7:30 in the morning down to almost 5 in the afternoon,” he said.

Some of the faculty were sent to three different areas: 1) the Pre-Assessment Area wherein they interviewed the clients, checked vital signs, and assessed them if they were physically fit for vaccination; 2) the Vaccination Area wherein four of the members of the faculty were trained and instructed to administer the vaccine; and 3) Post-Assessment Areas for monitoring after-effects of the vaccine by checking their vital signs before discharging. They worked harmoniously with the CHO nurses, physicians, and other staff during the entire vaccination program.

All schools in Ilocos Norte participated in the program, and NWU endorsed its College of Allied Health Sciences.

The faculty members could not deny the great experiences that they had. According to them, these experiences awakened their spirit of volunteerism. “After 2 years of being unable to practice their clinical skills due to the pandemic, they surely missed providing care to clients even for just a little bit of time,” when asked if they were willing to do it again, Prof. Bullalayao concluded, “We will be doing volunteer work again.”