To all of you, staunch believers in NBS, welcome to the 17th Annual National NBS Convention! Our convention date has been moved earlier to October 1-2, 2019 to be held at the PICC.

The good news is that PhilHealth, which is our country's largest purchaser of health care services, has approved the Expanded Newborn Care Package that will cover ENBS. With this development, ENBS is expected to increase its national coverage from a measly 9-12% that we got last year. Another development, as I am writing this message, is the passage of the Universal Health Care Law just a few weeks ago. How this will impact the steady increase of our ENBS national coverage is something to look forward to. All newborn babies, as in 'ALL", whether they are babies of 'indirect' and 'direct' members of PhilHealth will now be checked for all the diseases in our ENBS panel. We are still waiting for the IRR but we are hopeful that it will support what we have started in our NBS program.

In our convention, again we will discuss problems/solutions that commonly beset us in our day to day NBS practice. Some interesting clinical presentations will be given by our speakers as a testament that the program truly finds positive cases of babies who are saved from mental retardation and death.

Our convention will once again bring together all the important stakeholders of NBS --- the true staunch believers of NBS, which is I say is one of the best health programs in our country today.

Mabuhay tayong lahat! Welcome, again, to our 17th Annual NBS Convention!

Dr. Ephraim Neal C. Orteza
President
Newborn Screening Society of the Philippines, Inc.