How Fe del Mundo Shaped Healthcare in the Philippines

Born in Manila in 1911, Fe del Mundo was one of eight children and grew up opposite the city’s cathedral. Three of her siblings died in infancy, something that was sadly common at the time. This inspired her to become a doctor and to improve healthcare for the poor.

Del Mundo graduated from the University of the Philippines in 1933 and passed the medical board the same year. In 1939, she began a two-year fellowship at Harvard Medical School’s Children’s Hospital and in 1940, earned a master’s degree in bacteriology in the city.

She returned to the Philippines in 1941, shortly before the Japanese invasion of the island. During the war, del Mundo joined the International Red Cross and volunteered with detainees at the University of Santo Tomas internment camp for foreign nationals.

In 1954, del Mundo became head of the Department of Pediatrics at Far Eastern University, a position she held for more than two decades. It was during this period that she founded the Children's Medical Center Foundation in Quezon City.

Del Mundo sold her home and most of her belingings in order to finance the construction of the foundation. She also took out a large loan in an effort to get the project completed. The 107-bed hospital, the first children’s hospital in the Philippines, was inaugurated in 1957.