SHE FINISHED HER studies near the top of her class. But poverty, temporary blindness and domestic health problems prevented her from taking the licensure examination by three years. When she finally took it, she was No. 2 nationwide.

Ruvi-Ann D. Tan, 23, of Talacogon, Agusan del Sur, completed her midwifery studies in 2002 at the School of Health Sciences (SHS), the farthest unit of the University of the Philippines Manila, in Palo, Leyte.

She was qualified to take the midwife licensure exams that year. But her parents and two brothers did not have money for her to review and take the exams.

Instead, she extended her six-month “service leave,” a requirement of SHS for its graduates to render volunteer health service in their home barangays after every level of the stepladder curriculum.

Tan had been serving her barangay for nearly two years when she turned blind in the right eye. She had not been told about its technical name or cause, but she had experienced temporary blindness alternately in both eyes four times since high school.

She regained her eyesight three months after her latest brush with blindness, but a blur in her right eye remains.

After her recovery, Tan went to Davao City and found work as a salesgirl in a trading store. Her Chinese family name was soon noticed and this drew her close to the family of her Filipino-Chinese employer. She then became their trusted house help. Her duties included bringing her employer’s children to and fetching them from school.

Tan could have taken the licensure exam last year with the money she had saved from her low-paying job. But she had to spend her meager savings for the goiter treatment of her mother, Victoria, 43, a barangay health worker.

At about the same time, her father, Rodulfo, 46, was struck by cholera and was forced to quit his job as a construction worker in Cebu City and come home.

This year, with sufficient savings and her family crisis behind her, Tan left her job in Davao and reviewed for the national midwifery exams held Nov. 8-9, which she took in Tacloban.

Tan passed the exams with a grade of 89.95 percent, putting her second among 2,229 examinees nationwide. Only 1,145 passed, a national passing rate of 51.4 percent.

Aside from Tan, three other SHS graduates landed in the top 10. Rea Mae Castro from Gandara, Samar, was 4th with a grade of 88 percent; Melchor Patal-e Jr. of Bauko, Mt. Province was 7th with 87.15 percent; and Jessica Rose Buduhan of Barlig, Mt. Province, was 10th with 86.80 percent.

Forty-three out of 45 examinees from SHS made it, for a passing rate of 95.6 percent.

Tan said she hoped to pursue the nursing course, the next level of the SHS curriculum, after her accomplishment.

She said her training at the SHS helped her “keep the flame of patriotism burning.”

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