WITH over 20 honors and awards received, among them the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1997, it still comes as a surprise to many that the recipient of these accolades is a nun.
And it is also a surprise that the nun is a surgeon. Sis. Eva Fidela Maamo, SPC, MD, was a graduate of medicine from the Cebu Velez College of Medicine and had practiced for three years at a family-owned clinic in Liloan, Southern Leyte, before she joined the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres in 1969.
Sis. Eva and her siblings have been in medical practice for years.
The medical missions they conducted in depressed communities from 1966 to 1969, allowed her to see poverty, illiteracy, and the alarming absence of medical care inspired her to abandon a promising medical career in mainstream practice to work as a volunteer nun-surgeon in remote areas, particularly among indigenous tribes.
Sis. Eva, who is turning 74 on September 17, still recalls a procedure she conducted in 1974 on the wife of a T’boli datu in Lake Sebu, South Cotabato. The woman was bleeding after her ovarian cyst had ruptured. She badly needed emergency surgery to survive.
But getting her to Dadiangas (now General Santos City) to the nearest institution with surgical facilities would mean crossing rivers seven times. The weather was also bad that night. Hauling her through unforgiving weather might have cost her life even before they arrived at the hospital.
The woman was instead brought to a parish convent where Sis. Eva conducted the procedure on a bamboo table. The only “surgical” equipment available were a knife, a flashlight and 15 cc of local anesthesia.
The night was dark. Mosquitoes and other mountain insects were flying. To prevent them from getting into the woman’s cut, Sis. Eva performed the procedure inside a mosquito net, wearing the white bathrobe of a fellow nun who assisted her.
Since there was no dextrose, she hung a coconut and drew its juice into the woman to supply her with potassium through a tubing. The operation was successful. The T’boli woman survived.
Sis. Eva then set up a clinic in Lake Sebu made of bamboo that catered to T’bolis and other tribes in the mountains who came seeking medical attention.
She also trained a number of tribesmen to become “barefoot doctors” who would carry on her mission. She got 17 participants from the six tribes in the mountains of South Cotabato.
“It was very inspiring,” the nun said. “After the training, the participants were able to reduce the incidence of diseases in their communities by about one third.”
When her superior called her back to Manila after seven years (1974 to 1981) in South Cotabato, she reached out the health services of a community clinic in Singalong, Manila.
Three years later she established the Foundation of Our Lady of Peace Mission (FOLPM) in 1984, which set up clinics and feeding centers across the National Capital Region, including areas in Manila, Quezon City, Makati City, Parañaque and Las Piñas.
“We are for total human development,” she said. “I started scholarships feeding programs, day-care centers and micro-lending to give the poor a chance for decent livelihood.”
The foundation is currently feeding children at 12 centers in slum areas in Metro Manila.
In recent years, FOLPM averages 120 scholars in a year. The scholars are invited, not urged, to attend values formations and retreats. Currently, they have 18 in Leyte and about 180 Aytas.
Sis. Eva was also able to organize about 300 doctors, nurses and dentists who volunteer in medical missions conducted by the foundation.
“We go all over the country,” Sis. Eva said. “Usually, we stay in one place for a week where we perform free surgery.”
The medical missions include tumor removal, cleft-palate repair, cataract removal and treatment of other diseases. Everything is free.
Her missions have helped ensure the survival of 118 tribes in the country.
“People in these areas die without seeing a doctor or a nurse because they live in very remote areas,” she said. “I asked the doctors to train barefoot doctors from the tribes.”
Through the assistance of fellow volunteers, Sis. Eva’s foundation has to date trained 229 barefoot doctors from the 118 tribes.
“Our barefoot doctors are not officially trained at medical schools,” she said. “But all branches of medicine are taught to them, according to one’s capacity to receive instruction.”
Convening about 30 to 40 indigenous peoples at the 1.5-hectare Bahay Pangarap complex in Parañaque to train barefoot doctors cost about P1.5 million in recent years, Sis. Eva said. Today, it could cost more.
“We don’t mind,” she said. “We see the need.”
The $50,000 cash she received as part of the Ramon Magsaysay Award financed the construction of a house that she and five other nuns occupy inside Our Lady of Peace Hospital compound, she said.
Sis. Eva is also the recipient of the Most Outstanding Physician of the Philippines Award (1994), the International Peace Prize (2003), the Mother Theresa Award (1992) and The Outstanding Filipino Award (2003). She was also Woman of the Year (2008) and Outstanding Woman of the 21st Century (2002).
Sis. Eva’s foundation also helped Aytas, displaced from their ancestral lands by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, get back on their feet. She built an enclave in the mountains of Zambales to reconstruct their society.
At present, Aytas grow crops, swine and poultry to feed their people. A health clinic, school and livelihood projects are run in the Aytas Resettlement and Rehabilitation Area in Gala, Sacatihan, Subic, Zambales.
In 1992 Sis. Eva built Our Lady of Peace Hospital inside the Bahay Pangarap complex on donations from both local and foreign sources. The four-story building is fitted with 100 beds.
Her siblings based in the US helped her raise funds for the construction of the hospital. The late Fr. James Reuter also backed her project.
The total cost of the hospital was P160 million, she said, with P50 million donated by former Ambassador Alfonso Yuchengco.
“Father Reuter died in this hospital,” Sis. Eva said. “He refused to be taken by the Jesuits.”
She was a resident physician at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) from 1973 to 1974 and the medical center along UN Avenue in Manila from 1980 to 1983.
Her post-graduate studies include Internal Medicine, Radiology and Orthopedics at PGH; General Surgery, Medicine, X-ray and Ultrasound (Saint Theresa’s Hospital in Hong Kong); General Surgery, Ultrasound and X-ray at Saint Paul Hospital, Hong Kong); General Surgery at Caritas International Hospital Hong Kong; and General Surgery at the University of California Hospital.
Today, Sis. Eva is eyeing to train more barefoot doctors, feed more children in depressed areas, give more scholarships to young people who demonstrate strong inclination toward learning, conduct more free medical missions, and provide indigenous and poor people with livelihood assistance.
Livelihood trainings include weaving, sewing, pedicab driving, organic farming, soap making, candle making and food processing.
She is also looking to upgrade Our Lady of Peace Hospital to admit more patients and provide state-of-the-art medical services to more poor people.
She began conducting surgical operations in 1974, when she was 34. The septuagenarian nun-surgeon still does the procedure. She is 73 now.
She believes she could not have gone this far in charity work without divine inspiration.
“People who come in seeking support, I know they are sent by God,” Sis. Eva said