A pharmaceutical post (of sorts)

I didn’t know what I was in for when I volunteered to serve at Shell’s medical and dental mission in Tabangao, Batangas City last August 3.

Sure, I’d been at medical and dental missions before, but always as part of a coverage team. 

The full breakfast spread for the volunteers should have set off warning bells in my head. After all, why were we being treated to so much good food if we weren’t expected to burn it off – fried rice, daing, tapa, itlog, manok and all?

One of the doctors of the Batangas Medical
Society attends to a young patient at Shell's
medical and dental mission.

They did ring faintly in my head at the reaction of some of the other volunteers when I told them I had volunteered at the pharmacy. “Kayong pinakahuling matatapos (You’ll be among the last done),” said one. “Magulo diyan (It’s a riot there),” said another.

I shot an alarmed look at my friend, Gigi, who was calmly eating her breakfast.  When Shell had asked for volunteers, she had dissuaded me from manning the registration desk, saying we should go serve at the pharmacy. Having no medical background, I wasn’t sure if I would be of much use there. Still, I figured that they could always use someone who could read labels and work hard and fast in getting the medicines per prescription.

After being briefed on the process we had to follow, I started filling up my first prescription.  I was feeling quite nimble when I heard Gigi wondering how many 60 ml bottles should she give a patient who was supposed to take in 7.5 ml three times a day for five days.

Whaaaatttt?  I looked at the prescription I’d filled. I’d just assumed that one bottle would do. My gas. Then, she asked if the patients were familiar with suspensions and if we were supposed to fill the bottle with the required volume of water for them and I’m like whaaattttt? Again.

(Leftmost) Gigi Ligan of the Shell Tabangao
Ladies Circle, joins pharmacists in dispensing
medicines.

I looked at Gigi suspiciously. Yes, my friend was a pharmacist. Not a practicing one; hence, her silence, but her knowledge certainly came in handy since she was the only pharmacist around at that early hour. Once the others came in, I very willingly withdrew to the task of filling up prescriptions and yes, doing the Math to come up with enough bottles per prescription.

True enough, the prescriptions started piling up and we had our hands full. Since registration ended early, the volunteers there joined us at the pharmacy. It did seem like a circus inside the enclosed space for a while, but we had thinking individuals who kept trying to keep things in order, freeing up the choke points by spreading out the work, and widening our work area to accommodate the volume of filled-up prescriptions and speed up the flow.

After what seemed like an eternity, the pile of prescriptions started going down and I realized that only a few doctors were still seeing patients.  The end was in sight. Hot and sticky with perspiration, I realized I was tired but happy.

I later learned that some 700 residents from five barangays that surround the

Shell Batangas Communications & Social
Manager Cesar Abaricia (2nd from right) join
volunteers at the pharmacy.

Shell Refinery (Tabangao, Ambulong, Libjo, San Isidro and Malitam) got medical and dental advice and treatment from volunteer doctors of the Batangas Medical Society that day.

I also learned that the number was lower than expected because a similar activity had just been conducted in a nearby barangay a week or two earlier.

Still, 700 is 700 and they weren't just a number to me that day. They were faces – that of an old woman, a mother who left her children in the shade while she did the paperwork, the father who held his son still for the doctor’s ministration, some young ones who trembled at the hands of the dentist, and others who bravely held their arms out for blood testing.

I now know why people volunteer. They perspire, get tired, and even ache after long hours of service. But these soon fade. The memory of those faces, however, takes longer to disappear.