‘Hilot” still in demand for birth deliveries in Aklan – NSO survey

BY BOY RYAN B. ZABAL

KALIBO, Aklan – Thirty four percent of the registered births in Aklan from January to August this year were attended by the traditional hilots.

In the survey released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) Aklan, traditional birth attendants or hilot accounted for 2,005 birth deliveries of the total 5,899 registered births.

The high number of hilot-assisted deliveries are in demand in rural areas and far-flung barangays of the province.

Thirty nine percent or 2,299 of women delivered their babies in Aklan by doctors while 24 percent of birth deliveries involved midwives and two percent of deliveries were assisted by nurses.The survey also identified the capital town of Kalibo as having the most number of births with 2,224 followed by Malay with 513, New Washington with 329 and Balete with 203.

Of the registered births from January to August, 54 percent were born legitimates and 46 percent were also born illegitimates.
NSO also reported that 74 percent of 2,241 registered deaths in Aklan for same period were attended by doctors while 26 percent died without seeing a doctor.
Kalibo has the most number of registered deaths with 775 since victims were normally brought to provincial and private hospitals in this town. Ibajay has 204, Banga with 128, Malay with 127, Nabas with 119 and New Washington with 117 registered deaths,
Cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death among Aklanons with 1,429 for the period January to August this year, of which 960 deaths were females. The survey showed other leading causes of death in the province such as pneumonia with 141, pulmonary heart disease with 57, septicaemia with 55 and hypertension heart disease with 46.
A total of 1,973 couples took their marriage vows in the first eight months of the year, the NSO data showed.

There were 1,105 couples married in the Roman Catholic Church, 782 couples in civil ceremony, one couple in Muslim rites and 85 couples also married in other religion rites.
Meanwhile, NSO Aklan targets 547,900 population for 2010, 50.4 percent are males and 49.6 percent are female. The statistics office conducted the nationwide 2010 Census of Population and Housing (CPH) from May 17 until the first week of June to gather demographic, social and economic characteristics of the population.
This month of October, the province is celebrating the 21st National Statistics Month with the theme, “Towards a Philippine Statistical System Responsive to Emerging National and Global Challenges.”