Lil-Esper S. Duhina, an Extra-Ordinary Nurse

Lil-Esper S. Duhina, an Extra-Ordinary Nurse
Melcichon
September 3, 2012

“Good afternoon, everybody!” says a nurse holding a sphygmomanometer or blood pressure meter and a stethoscope as she entered the library where I work.

“Good afternoon,” I answered her. “I am glad you came over. May I help you?” I asked her.

“Thanks,” she said. “Actually, I came here to extend our medical service to you and your library staff. I know you are all too busy to visit our medical clinic even just to have your blood pressure checked up. So I came over here.”

It reminded me of the old saying: “If Mohammed cannot go the mountain, let the mountain go to Mohammed.”

“Oh, how nice of you,” I said. “You are the first nurse I know who goes around to extend medical services to the college personnel.” My observation about her was also observed by my colleagues at St. Therese-MTC Colleges Library when I asked them of what they can say about this nurse.

This is Ms. Lil-Esper Sumergido Duhina of Pototan, Iloilo and presently the college nurse of St, Therese-MTC Colleges, La Fiesta Site, Molo, Iloilo City. Her name came from the combination of her mother’s name, Lira, and from the name of her father’s mother, Esperanza.

Days after that visit, she again came to our Library informing us that there were seminars on brain attack and on eyesight, and encouraged us to attend to these seminars. She said that the resource persons are all experts in their respective fields. Indeed they were. The resource person on eyesight was Dr. Julia Z. Villanueva, MD, of the Department of Health, Western Visayas, while the speaker on brain attack was Dr. Steven G. Baclaian, MD, FAFNI.

So I said to myself, I will write something about her. She deserves to be emulated.

That led me to ask her why she is doing all these things.

“I’m just doing my job as your college nurse.” And she added:  “we (nurses) are blessings. She continued, “being a nurse is a gift, sir, and I don't want to waste that gift.”

That is right. Nurses are blessings. I wish all nurses are like her—concerned of the health of her fellowmen, and very approachable.

Ms. Duhina was born in Gharian, Libya. So was her brother, Jian Paolo.

She told me that her parents were then working in Libya where she was born. Her mother was a nurse then. Her father was an all around steward in a French company in Libya.

While in Libya, Lil-Esper learned English with an Indian tutor because her mother did not want her to speak Arabic.

After five years of stay in Libya, her mother decided to bring Lil-Esper to Iloilo mainly for academic reason. Her brother was brought to the Philippines before he reached one year old.

She was enrolled at Colegio de las Hijas de Jesus, Iloilo City, It was also there where she finished her high school.

After graduation from high school, she enrolled at Central Philippine University (CPU), Iloilo City for a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree.|

Although a nursing degree was not her first choice, but because her parents wanted her to be a nurse instead of becoming a lawyer, she yielded to her parents' desire.

And eventually, she slowly loved the profession.

It was in CPU where she learned the value of knowledge, attitudes and skills.

“Even if you are intelligent and skillful, but if you have unacceptable attitude, you are nothing,” she said. “These three things,” she continued, “must have equilibrium.”

And this philosophy has been his guiding principle in her professional life as a nurse.

She finished her BSN degree at Central Philippine University in 2008 and passed the nursing licensure board exam in the same year.

To improve her nursing skills, she volunteered as a nurse-trainee at the following hospitals St. Therese-MTCC Hospital, Iloilo Doctors Hospital and at Great Saviour International Hospital, all in Iloilo City from August 17, 2009 to November 28, 2011.

Before the end of her training at Great Saviour International Hospital, she had applied in one of the hospitals in Libya and at St. Therese-MTC Colleges as a nurse. She said that whoever will be the first to hire her as a nurse, that would be the place where she would work with.

And fortunately, it was the St. Therese-MTC Colleges that accepted her first. So, she set aside Libya. It was also a double blessings in disguise because had she been accepted by a Libyan hospital, she would have experienced the hardship of the recent war in that country.

And if she had been hired by the Libyan hospital, I could not have written this short profile.