LS Office of Health Services: Rising to the challenges of a pandemic

When the pandemic brought jarring changes in how students access health services, the Loyola Schools Office of Health Services (OHS) did not skip a beat. Instead, it rose to the challenges, pivoting its structures and practices to continue providing an array of services to students.

"The OHS migration from an on-site to an online environment was made during the first week of off-site operations," said Dr Henrietta Dela Cruz, director of OHS. At the time, one of their challenges was the provision of a safe online consultation system, given that hospitals were deemed "unsafe due to the surges accompanying the initial spread" of cases. There were also reports of students whose families had been affected by COVID -19, so OHS worked with the LS Campus Ministry and the Office of Guidance and Counselling to initiate conversations and counseling with students. 

"There were students who were anxious for parents who were affected by COVID-19 if not by illness, but by financial setbacks from the pandemic," Dela Cruz said.  

With everyone's normalcy interrupted, providing student support did not. OHS transformed most of its services online, using Facebook and linking with the LS One portal of the Student and Administrative Services Cluster. It also helped that the Sanggunian, the student council, regularly promote the office services on their pages. With the catchline," We are just a text or call away," OHS was able to reach out to more students. After all, it is vital that students know that OHS is there whenever they need them.   

Aside from sharing reliable and relevant COVID-19 information (culled from DOH, WHO, and the University of Stanford), OHS also launched initiatives to help students adapt and thrive.

"One of the first webinars included health tips for students studying from their homes in the pandemic, including chair exercises to prevent back pain, eye care, and eye strain prevention tips to address the exposure hours to computers. Other webinars focusing on advice on altered sleep patterns, food as medicine, and skincare were also well attended. In addition, a series of COVID-19 webinars served as a forum for home-care advice, the rise of variants, vaccination concerns, and dealing with the surges from the variants of SARsCoV," Dela Cruz said.

OHS teamed up with the Ateneo Food Safety and Nutrition Council and the LS Physical Education department to conduct virtual sessions tackling heath, mental, and physical challenges encountered during the quarantine. 

In addition, Dela Cruz noted how the Blue Personal Health Record System, which became the carrier for the Blue Pass system, became a secure platform for accessing health services to students. 

As students settle into the new possible, OHS will continue to look for ways to serve students and help them along the way. 

"There will be numerous demands for the community to adapt as students return to campus. However, it is our belief at the Office of Health Services that each office can continue to meet demands with sustainable solutions; the past two years have been teaching all of us well," said Dela Cruz. "As Pope Francis said, 'Many things have to change course, but we human beings [who] need to change' Responding to the crisis and returning to what Dr Ma Luz Vilches called the "Next Possible" called for changes for everyone's way of doing things; it also called the LS to come together as one community to recreate campus life."

Visit the OHS Facebook. For other queries, email them at healthservices.ls@ateneo.edu.