Cover Dr Jaycy Violago-Olivarez, founder and CEO of Eluvo Health
Dr Jaycy Violago-Olivarez, founder and CEO of Eluvo Health
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Dr Jaycy Violago-Olivarez, founder and CEO of Eluvo Health, addresses unmet needs and societal barriers to women’s health with a commitment to accessibility and quality care
The first year of residency training is difficult. You get an average of 24 hours of sleep in a week, unintentionally fast intermittently, and work nonstop with just a single rest day in a seven-day cycle—all while stuck at the bottom of the hospital food chain. These challenges do not depict an unusual story for someone walking towards a career in the medical field. “After seven months, more than three-fourths of my body was out the door.”
This was how Dr Jaycy Violago-Olivarez spent her early months as a resident OB/GYN doctor at The Medical City.
But one day, as she worked her usual rounds, a patient came in at three in the morning to go into labour. Violago-Olivarez was exhausted and on the verge of quitting then, but she swallowed whatever exhaustion was seeping from her bones and persisted in following protocol.
It was then that she, all tired and weary, witnessed a moment that would change her life forever: she watched as the mother cried tears of joy, with everyone else cheering her and the new baby girl on. “I had an epiphany,” she shares. “If I had quit then, I would never be able to help and empower other women in that rawest, most precious moment in their lives [anymore]. I would never be able to share the experience of bringing life into this world ever again.”
She knew then that she was meant to be a specialist for women. “I needed to be a woman for other women. It is embedded in the core of my ikigai,” she says.
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Above Dr Jaycy Violago-Olivarez says forging a path in obstetrics and gynaecology felt the most natural to her
Dr Jaycy Violago-Olivarez says forging a path in obstetrics and gynaecology felt the most natural to her
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For years, discrimination rooted in sociocultural factors has disadvantaged the health of women and girls and persists today. For Violago-Olivarez, women face three main challenges regarding health: information, connection, and a community that will continuously support them.
Violago-Olivarez believes there is more room to accelerate and push forward to raise the level of healthcare services that women deserve in this country. This is despite the passing of the reproductive health law in 2012, which paved the way for discussions on women’s health, a better understanding of women’s needs, and a community that has grown to respect women’s different healthcare concerns. PhilHealth coverage for women’s health has also emerged, even with the lower case rates compared to other speciality services.
“There is still so much lack of access to reliable information about women’s health,” says Violago-Olivarez. “Women would turn to Google or social media to understand the healthcare concerns that they are experiencing. Connection is also a challenge in terms of scheduling and finding access to the service they require.”
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Above Dr Jaycy Violago-Olivarez and a patient at one of their clinics
Dr Jaycy Violago-Olivarez and a patient at one of their clinics
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Additionally, she shares how the deeply rooted culture and belief systems in the Philippines influence the perception of many when it comes to discussions about sexual and reproductive wellness, mental health, and menopause, to name a few. “Without a safe environment to discuss and share about women’s health, progress and significant changes will remain stunted, if not slow,” she says.
Nevertheless, Violago-Olivarez is hopeful that the government is trying to achieve multiple goals to improve healthcare in the country, albeit not immediately due to the complexities involved, such as lengthy discussions over national and local budgets, Department of Health policies, PhilHealth protocols, and even the standards local societies have imposed.
Thus, the doctor founded Eluvo Health to help bridge the gap in women’s health, making services accessible and affordable without sacrificing quality.
Through an integrated and simplified three-step approach, Talk-Test-Treat, Eluvo Health aims to address women’s health’s inaccessibility and defragmented system. This makes it an all-in-one clinic accessible via its mobile app and website (eluvohealth.com), providing holistic care that women have always deserved.
The mobile app—and technology, in general—plays a vital role in advancing health care. “Teleconsultation, in particular, has made healthcare more accessible not just for patients but for healthcare providers,” she explains. It answers many problems: “for patients, not knowing who to connect with, long queues, difficulty in scheduling, and frustration from finding quality service. For healthcare providers, teleconsultation allows us to reach out to more patients without the need to travel through traffic, pay stocks to practice at an institution, pay fees for rent and utilities, and even for others to hire additional manpower to help with scheduling and triaging of patients.” Digital healthcare bridges patients, doctors, and other healthcare providers and brings them close together in one ecosystem.
Apart from its digital services, Eluvo Health also offers a physical healthcare system. In fact, the company will open two physical clinics within the year: the first in Parqal Mall in the third quarter and the second in a residential tower in Rockwell. The clinics provide various services depending on a woman’s stage in life: obstetrics and gynaecology, functional and aesthetic gynaecology, internal medicine, psychology, psychiatry, dermatology, paediatrics and nutrition, and more.
“We aim to ensure the healthcare journeys of our patients are smooth and holistic. The first step in the process is to talk to one of our Eluvo specialists. This is then followed by doing diagnostic tests to support the diagnosis or working impression,” she explains. These tests and procedures include sample collection and home ultrasound services. “Once our flagship clinic is up, we can then provide test procedures in our clinic, as well as provide the service of medicine distribution and scheduling of procedures to ensure that patients are truly holistically managed, allowing them to transform into their best healthy selves.”
Above Dr Jaycy Violago-Olivarez and a patient at one of their clinics
Dr Jaycy Violago-Olivarez and a patient at one of their clinics
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Eluvo Health aims to spread reliable information about women’s health through its social media and digital platforms and establish connections with patients through its website, which serves as its digital clinic. “We hope to cater to more women across the country by opening more branches of Eluvo Health Clinic. Eventually, we hope to put up the first private women’s and children’s hospital in the country,” says Violago-Olivarez.
At the end of the day, Violago-Olivarez and the Eluvo Health team just hope to develop an integrated digital and physical healthcare system to meet every woman’s unique needs at every stage of her life. She cites one particular patient as an example. “She messaged me about how happy she was after her vaginal rejuvenation session and O-shot procedure. Even her partner was very satisfied. I get similar responses from other patients, and these kinds of feedback are always so exciting,” she shares, happy to create a safe space for women on sexual wellness, among many services.
“Women who have good health-seeking behaviour are already on the right path,” she says. “These women are my inspiration. They can be trying to achieve their health goals quietly or creating influence loudly, but what is important is that they are beacons of hope and inspiration for what other women can achieve.”
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Credits
Images: Eluvo Health
Angela Nicole Regis Guiral is a digital editor at Tatler Philippines. She studied journalism and has since written features that look closely at how culture, lifestyle and social impact converge, while occasionally wandering into the worlds of style and travel.
