Joel Buenaventura

I am currently the Chief Health Program Officer of the Migrant Health Unit of the Department of Health (DOH) - Philippines. I am the program manager of the Philippine Migrant Health Program, which was an offshoot of the collaboration between the DOH and the IOM-Philippines started officially in April 2013. We have conducted the joint DOH-IOM project on the Situational Analysis and Stakeholder Mapping of Migration and Health in the Philippines, which led to the crafting and approval of the Philippines National Policy on the Health of Migrants and Overseas Filipinos in March 2016. We have organized the Philippine Migrant Health Network, which is a multi-sectoral collaborative body on migration and health in the country involving other government agencies, non-government and civil society organizations, academe and the private sector. Internally, at the DOH, we are convening the Intra-Agency Task Force on Migrant Health. Together with IOM-Sri Lanka, we have collaborated on the Multi-Country Study on Migrant Health Assessments. Recently, we have signed another policy on the Integrated Policy and Guidelines on the Inter-Agency Medical Repatriation Assistance Program of the Philippine Government. We are currently doing another study, with the assistance from the World Health Organization Philippines, on Mapping the Current Existing Health Services for Migrants and Overseas Filipinos. As the Program Manager, we are coordinating all issues and concern regarding migrant health for the Department, from issues on the regulation of the medical facilities for overseas workers to medical repatriation and concerns on public health emergencies of international concern to the proposal to field health attaches to areas with high concentration of Filipinos.