She could not ask for more

She is happy at her job and it shows.

When asked if there is anything that could be done to make her working conditions better, kitchen head Jenny Barrequatro answers a firm “No.”

Jenny is happy with her staff of six and the spacious kitchen in which she cooks up nutritious, filling, and some would argue, fattening meals.

She has seen MPF-RBR grow in the 10 years she has been here and related that all her requests for a bigger kitchen and more staff have already been granted.

‘There used to be a small kitchen and the stove was small as well. I asked for a bigger one and I got everything I asked for,” she said.

The only challenge she has encountered in the time she has been serving staff and patients is the individualized meal plans that were created since the resident nutritionist came over in January 2008.

She explained that it is doubly challenging because they have to monitor the food that comes out of the kitchen to make sure they follow the nutritionist’s diet plan.

In addition, she said, patients need to be informed of the said diet plan.

“It is difficult to explain especially to patients why they had to be put on such and such a plan. Sometimes they start arguments asking why they were put for instance on a low sodium low fat diet. Sometimes I don’t know what to tell patients,” she related.

However, she maintained that she is generally happy that the hospital has grown and that it serves more patients now because it means more people suffering from mental illness are getting treatment.

Moreover, she said that the workload is light and the hours are not demanding.

Aside from being given the tools and thq manpower to perform her job well, Jenny also found satisfaction in her personal life when she met life partner Lito Lazaro, who is a nursing attendant, here three years ago.

She has a history of working for MPF-RBR executive director Dr. Benita Sta. Ana-Ponio’s family. Prior to MPF, she worked for Dr. Ponio’s household for four years. Ms. Barriquatro then left to look for employment as a factory worker but had no luck because she suffers from asthma, but came back when she heard MPF needed kitchen staff

If the bosses remain satisfied with her service, Jenny declared she is staying put here, where she is happy and satisfied.

His first and last

His job at Metro Psych is his first; he is determined it will be his last.

MPF was Mr. Marwynne Rivera’s first employer and while he dreams of going abroad to work, he hopes it will be his last in the Philippines. This is not to say though, that Marwynne is solely preoccupied with finding opportunities offshore.

These days he is busy trying to make a reality his vision of making the institution a world class and eventually self-contained facility for psychiatric clients and rehabilitation trainees. Particularly, he plans to improve staff training, facilities, provide better activities for clients and offer new services each year for clients.

On top of his mind though is the enhancement of training for staff that has direct contact with patients. He explained that the current education provided by the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH), for instance, does not reflect what is acceptable worldwide. In addition, he noted that most caregiver students are only exposed to providing psychiatric care when they rotate in institutions such as MPF.



“If it were up to me, I would really emphasize hands-on learning. Lectures are easy, it is best to learn through experience,” he noted.

Marwynne himself speaks from experience. He started from the bottom rung of the MPF ladder when he was hired as a fresh graduate to perform Occupational Therapist and Nursing Attendant duties back in 1999.

This head honcho, who first became General Manager in Cebu, also did time monitoring patient hygiene and manning the facility’s gates during that time.

“When MPF first opened, there were 11 of us and we were still feeling our way around. You needed to do everything. I really learned through experience,” he noted. The most valuable lesson he learned in his stint here in MPF? “Patience. Patience with the patients and patience even with your co-employees,” he stressed.

He may not have a definite number of years when he plans to stay on at the facility, but his hopes of working abroad does not diminish his dreams of making MPF a world class facility.

“My dream is for MPF to become number one. I want us to be on top of the consciousness of clients so that when they seek help, they will come to MPF and not any other center,” he added.

Part of this dream is to develop MPF into a state of the art, self-sustaining facility that could serve the patients’ every need. Marwynne added that MPF has already started in the right direction. The other jewel in the MPF crown is its Cebu branch, a sprawling facility that is the extension of the work of the hospital’s founders in the south.

And while he declined to give a definite answer about the length of his stay in the facility, it might be safe to say he’ll stay on for a good while yet.

"This is my first job and it is difficult to leave a place that you saw started from scratch. I want this to be my last job here in the Philippines,” he said.

An Interview with the Executive Director (10 years later...)

As with most good things, Metro Psychiatry Facility, Inc. was not what was originally intended to be.

The building that now houses the psychiatric hospital and rehabilitation institution was meant to be a school for children with learning disabilities, as founder and executive director Dr. Benita Sta. Ana Ponio tells it.

She said that she had two children with learning disabilities and she and her husband were finding it difficult to find the kind of help their children needed, so they decided help put up a special school.

However, the couple could not agree with the prospective teachers on vital issues. For instance, the teachers wanted a student-teacher ratio of 8:1, which the Ponio couple did not find acceptable. In addition, they wanted more offices to support their advocacy work.

“So we decided to call it off before we end up not being friendly,” Dr. Ponio said.

Already with a shell, Dr. Ponio said she and her husband argued over what to do with the idle building. She said her husband told her to set up a psychiatric hospital, while she told him to open n general hospital.

“Guess who won the argument,” she said with a smile.

After deciding to use the building for a psychiatric hospital, Dr. Ponio asked her brother in law, who was then an accountant with the well-known accounting firm SGV, to help her create a project proposal that will be presented to her colleagues.

“I wanted it to be a premier institution,” she said. Aside &am being a recognized facility, Dr. Ponio st she wanted her hospital to adhere to a certain standard of care not found in most such institutions in the country. She added that she did not want this hospital to be like other government institutions that lack basic necessities for want of resources.

However, her vision also included a facility that was not as expensive as the other larger hospital.

“I wanted this to be a place where patients are not just locked up, not just lying in their beds while they are waiting for their medications to take effect,” she stressed.

What started as what could be called a fluke tuned out to be a resounding success.

Although they w.ere not set to earn anything over the first three years, the hospital turned in n Php 25,000 profit in the first year, Dr. Ponio related with a laugh.

Aside from the bottom lee though, success could be measured by the growth of the facility and its sustained partnerships with pharmaceutical companies, all intended to continuously improve services for the patients.

“It has improved so much from the time it started in terms of the facility and number of patients and staff,” she observed.

From a 35 bed hospital in 1999, it now houses 130 beds. It also now has a bigger kitchen, a gym, a basketball court and a swimming pool.

In addition, the hospital opened another branch in Cebu in 2005, which attracted investors on its own.

“I said I dreamt for it to grow but I didn’t imagine it to grow this big. i already consider PF-Cebu a bonus,” Dr. Ponio noted.

Meanwhile, she said, the facility has optimized its relationships with – pharmaceutical companies. Every October, Dr. Ponio said their partner pharmaceutical companies commit a certain amount to support such programs as the hospital newsletter, the annual sportsfest, and the quarterly lay forum – all of which entail cost that is not passed on to the patients because of their assistance.

“I think one of the major reasons why this is working is because we are not as expensive as the big hospitals,” Br. Ponio said. “But more than – that, the passion and commitment we put in to om work makes a lot of difference.”

However, she noted that because doctors “don’t know money, there was a need to understand it better to make things run.”

Dr. Fareda Flores, managing director and one of the incorporators., turned out to be a gem in this area because of her natural knack for – business. She studied at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) to “ enhance her financial management skills.

“She was the youngest but she turned out to be the workhorse of the group,” Dr. Poriio observed.

She added that “things moved fasts” after Br. Flores did her stint in business school because she knew where to allocate the money that was coming in. Dr. Ponio credits Dr. Flores with coming up with the continuing partnership program with pharmaceutical companies.

“We can’t do anything good if we don’t have the money to do it with,” she observed.

Although she does not want to make any more plans for the moment for MPF Pasig, Dr. Ponio said she hopes the facility will become a training institution not only for doctors, but also for allied professions as well.

“I always wanted it to be a training institution,” she added. Dr. Ponio attributes this dream to her stint as a training officer at the National Center for Mental Health earlier in her career.

Already, the hospital accepts nursing affiliates from various schools across the country.

In addition, the Philippine Board of Psychiatry conducts its oral exams in the hospital.

“The doctors who take their exams here are surprised to find that patients here are very well educated about their condition,” Dr. Ponio related.

Meanwhile, she said she and her team plan to focus on improving the facilities of MPF-Cebu, while she believes the Pasig institution is already complete.

Also on the horizon is the setting up of another MPF .in Mindanao.

“There’s always that thought that there will be another Metropsych in the country. It will happen,” she added.

A Brief History of Metro Psych Facility

Metro Psych Facility is a private psychiatric hospital owned and operated by Metro Psychiatry Incorporated. It is the actualization of a dream of a group of psychiatrists to be able to provide alternative care for individuals needing psychiatric treatment and rehabilitation. Even before Metro Psychiatry Inc. was formally registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission in February 24, 1999, majority of its Board of Directors, being experts in the field of psychiatry, have been involved in advocacy and provision of mental health services as a group and as individuals. Most of the members of the Board of Directors worked and some are still connected with the National Center for Mental Health in Mandaluyong.

We have seen how psychiatric patients are treated in the said government facility and rejected by their own families and the society. The said patients are regarded as nuisance, burden and some families even wished them dead. This maybe because psychiatric patients at the height of their symptoms are distressing and some of them become physically violent. When Metro Psych Facility was created, we made sure that the practices that we did not like in the government psychiatric hospital will not - happen in our facility. The physical set up of the facility was designed attractively and spaciously so that patients will not feel that they are being
punished and imprisoned.

The work forces were screened carefully on their views on mental illness and we made sure that all of them had no history of working in any psychiatric hospital. We patiently trained them so that what we envisioned was followed strictly. We wanted our patients to feel secure and make our facility a refuge where they can stay in times of crises brought about by pressures from work and family. We instill to our staff the values of honesty, loyalty, respect and love for their family. We want our patients to be treated properly and view their admission at the facility as a positive experience where they can feel relief of their symptoms. We believe that psychiatric patients are still capable of leading a normal life only if their psychiatric symptoms are controlled.

We envision a facility that provides activities to slowly integrate them back to their family and society in general. We also involve their families in the treatment process for them to fully understand their patient. Families should be educated on the nature of the psychiatric illness of their loved ones so that they are ready to identify and deal with future relapses, as this is inevitable.