OUTLINNE
ESSAY
Public Health in the Philippines as a risk on the lives of Filipinos
It is a widely known fact that the Philippines is a third world country and with this comes the reputation of being underdeveloped. Looking at the capabilities of other countries, the Philippines does not come close to becoming the model nation everyone hopes to be. From unsanitary rivers to broken streets and pavements, the Philippines is buried under poverty. According to Royeca (2010), several factors contribute to the poor state of the Philippines and one of these factors is overpopulation. He stated that Filipinos tend to produce large families without proper family planning first and one of the necessities in family planning is proper health care. Much like a family, the Philippine government must ensure that each and every person in the country receives proper healthcare; however, this is not the case because due to the unreasonable amount of flaws in the system, proper health care in the Philippines is difficult to attain.
Asian countries such as Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong are known to have some of the world’s best public healthcare systems (Martin, 2017). With their high standards, equaling them will be impossible to attain without proper assistance from the government. However, due to numerous projects and plans, the government does not put healthcare as a priority which they should. Aside from this, the abundance of disease and lack of proper medical care contribute the unsatisfactory standards of Philippine health care. The health of the Filipinos is slowly diminishing due to insufficient participation of the government. Because of improper standards of public health care, the mortality and morbidity rate of the Philippines is at an all time high. People are left to die because they don’t have enough funds or resources to treat them. Instead of getting better in hospitals, they just attain new diseased due to unsanitary conditions. The prioritization of public health in the Philippines is not enough as the mortality and morbidity rate continue to increase. Attempts to resolve this issue have been acted on only to be proven unsuccessful; however, the Senior Care plan, Smoking ban, and Restoration will be able to address the problem.
According to the WHO or World Health Organization, the Philippines’ health care system is severely “fragmented” in which unfair chances of health care are not provided to the poor. The government does not provide enough of their funds to support public healthcare which causes Filipinos, especially the poor, to use the money out of their own pockets to get health care (Kenworthy, 2017). The responsibility of public healthcare is in the hands of the DOH or Department of Health. Despite this, the DOH does not properly provide the people with the proper healthcare they need. 40% of all hospitals in the Philippines are public and all are managed by the government. However, according to a 2007 report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), “…medicines and supplies are inferior and rarely available; staff members are often absent, especially in rural areas, and are perceived to lack medical and people skills; and waiting time is long, schedules are inconvenient, and facilities are rundown.” (Santos, 2014, p. 3). The government has a lack of funds dedicated towards healthcare and that funds allocated for health care were often misused and abused by local government officials. Because of corruption, there is a lack of medical officials and medicinal supplies (Dakis, 2013).
Another reason the standard of public health in the Philippines is low is because of the abundance of diseases. Because of overpopulation, more people are prone to diseases acquired by passing it from one person to another. The unsanitary conditions and lack of air filtration in public hospitals is a reason why most of their patients tend to get sicker rather than getting better. Another reason Filipinos are so prone to diseases is because of improper waste management. Because of poverty, people tend to live near dump sites or polluted rivers. Aside from the load of trash dumped in those sites each day, they also contribute to this mess by dumping their own. Consequently, they are prone to they diseases transferred by the bacteria in the trash. Aside to airborne diseases, the public hospitals barely have resources to treat other diseases such as cancer, heart attack, and stroke which remain the top 3 killers of Filipinos (Buban, 2015). Because of the situation of these diseases, the mortality and morbidity rate of the Philippines has increased.
Although the government has attempted to address these problems, these attempts have have resulted as ineffective. One solution the government has provided is the availability of more course options for medicine in order to encourage students to take up medical practice and hopefully promote that practice in the Philippines. There are many colleges to choose from that offer a variety of pre-med courses one of which is the University of Santo Tomas or UST, the oldest medical school in the Philippines. From Psychology to Pharmacy, UST (along with other colleges) offer various courses to prepare students before they fully enter the field of professional medicine. After completing their pre-med courses, students must formally attend medical school before becoming full time doctors and nurses. UST, according to 25 Best Medical Schools in the Philippines for 2017 (2017), is the top medical school in the Philippines with a passing rate of 96%. Other popular medical schools that also have high passing rates include University of the Philippines- Manila (86%), De La Salle University- Health Science Institute (82%), and Ateneo de Mla Univ (67%). School of med. & Public Health-Pasig. With all these schools and degrees, it is easy to say that the Philippines gives a lot of opportunities for incoming doctors and nurses; But this is not the case as medical students prefer to travel abroad to work. Over the last 6 years, over a thousand doctors and nurses have flooded to other countries to pursue their careers which leaves the Philippines hanging. Over the past 5 years, an estimated number of 1,000 hospitals in the Philippines have shut down due to the lack of doctors. This is due to the fact that these doctors and nurses have a better chance at making more money in other countries rather than in the Philippines. While doctors in Philippine public hospitals ear around $800 a month, doctors in the United Sates are being paid $4000 a month for their services (“Philippine Medical Brain Drain Leaves Public Health System in Crisis”, 2009).
Aside from this, doctors and nurses tend to work better abroad due to the fact that better developed countries have updated technology and better facilities and services compared to the Philippines. This leads to the next solution from the government which was to build government hospitals. Despite being funded by the state, these hospitals are in the poorest of conditions. Lack of air ventilation and air purification only strengthens the flow of bacteria and diseases around the hospitals only making people sicker instead of better. It is also the lack of proper facilities and equipment which hinder the development and growth of these public hospitals. Because of these disadvantages, health care officials have a difficult time administering the proper health benefits to patients. Instead of getter better, people have to constantly purchase out of date drugs and medicines only for their illness to subside and then return later on. Because of cheap equipment, people are often misdiagnosed or they don’t have the opportunity to recover. Facilities are also a problem as these hospitals are rarely clean and often over populated. Patients have to not only share rooms, but beds as well causing disease to spread faster among patients. The reason public hospitals are in this situation is because of the low budget provided by the government. In relation to this, the government has also come up with the idea to co-privatize public hospitals in hopes of earning more profit. However, the Commission on Audit (COA) has concluded that this has instead been inefficient to the government because it prevented hospitals from earning income. X-rays and laboratory tests that used to be free now came with a fee which was very disadvantageous to the poor Filipinos especially (Casino, 2013).
The government has also created Philippine Health Insurance Corporation or better known as PhilHealth which was first established in the 1960s. It is the only government managed health insurance program in the Philippines that aims to provide and ensure the following for all Filipinos: 1) health insurance coverage for all Filipinos, 2) health care services that are of quality and affordability, and 3) responsible management of its economic resources (Ureta, 2016). Despite being a service to Filipinos, PhilHealth has been flawed and marked as a program that benefits the rich rather than the poor. A 2006 study by Liezel Lagrada of the Department of Health (DOH) discovered that in 2003, P5.2 billion worth of PhilHealth reimbursements went to the rich 20% of beneficiaries while only P1.4 went to the poor. A reason why poorer families have limited access to the benefits of PhilHealth is that they are not aware about these benefits. Insufficient attention to the poorer segment of the country has led to lack of knowledge on the sponsored programs that will benefit them (See, 2010). PhilHealth is a service that holds a responsibility to millions of Filipinos in the country. Being so, PhilHealth has poor network coverage and a limited source of resources which results in many Filipinos using the money out of their pockets to pay for their expenses despite still being insured in PhilHealth. Because of this, people who are prone to sickness often move closer to the life of poverty due to the many expenses they have to manage (Santos, 2014).
Although these solutions have been proven to be ineffective to the Philippines’ public health care, there are still some solutions that are more beneficial to the country rather than ineffective. The first proposed effective solution is the Senior Care Plan. Senior citizens are known to have discounts in restaurants, transportation, cinemas, and other varieties of activity. Despite this, they are no longer as strong as they used to be which requires them to be given more medical attention. It is very difficult for senior citizens to find jobs or even have the energy to work especially if they are sick. Even if this is the case, they are still forced to find jobs to provide for themselves. The Senior Care Plan will encourage the senior citizens to retire and manage their health instead. Free seminars and assemblies will be provided in local hospitals and health centers in order to educate the elderly on how to take care of and manage their health. A wider range of health care will be provided to cater to any disease or disability they may encounter. Free health clinics will be available for their use for monthly to yearly check ups, depending of their state of health as prescribed by their respective doctors. After proper deliberation and decision, the plan will be implemented through allotting at least 100,000 thousand per citizen per year for every citizen enrolled in the senior care plan. This budget will fund the medical expenses of the patients and pay as well for the services of medical staff. As much as possible, the government will recruit volunteer doctors of different medical fields who will be able to cater to the needs of the elderly.
Another solution is a nationwide smoking ban which entitles the Philippines to have a smoking ban in all public places. From the statistics of Philippine Society of Medical Oncology, lung cancer is one of the top 5 deadliest cancers in the Philippines. Every year around 2 million Filipinos are diagnosed with lung cancer and only 250,000 of them will be left alive after 5 years. Smoking has been one of the diagnosed causes of lung cancer which affects both men and women. Even if a person does not smoke, second-hand smoke is said to cause lung cancer in non-smokers who grew up with smoke around them (Tacio, 2017). Because of this, the Philippines should pass a law regarding a smoking pan that is effective across the country. There should be a prohibition of smoking within 100 ft. of schools, churches, and hospitals. Malls, restaurants, and other establishments should have designated smoking rooms away from crowded places. A fine of P1000 will be passed if someone is caught smoking in an undesignated area. This will be implemented through a yearly budget of 500, 000 per year to pay for tighter security and form more smoking-awareness and cancer-awareness seminars for people to attend. The fine collected from the violators will be donated to cancer centers and improvement of supplies and medicines used to treat cancer patients in public hospitals. Other public places are to immediately remove people using tobacco products in their facilities. The final solution to poor public health is to improve government hospitals.
The government should provide updated medicine and resources to all public hospitals to ensure better quality of healthcare. There should be the replacement of all machinery and equipment after a series of 5 years to ensure accurate results and proper diagnosis. Public hospitals should also have air ventilation and purification to avoid the contraction of other viruses and diseases. For this to happen, the government must increase the budget allotted for health care per year. Public hospitals should have enough resources to attain proper conditions and better benefits (Ong, 2012). The government must increase the budget of Public healthcare by at least 3 million more. This will be used to increase the pay medical staff, improve facilities, and update equipment and supplies. At the same time, the government will have a monthly check-up for government hospitals to make sure that they are still in stable condition. If ever they will encounter any problems, they must assess and solve these issues as soon as possible in a span of 1 month. Using their contact with other countries, the government must update themselves and these hospitals on the latest and newer medicines and supplies available for medical use.
The prioritization of public health in the Philippines is not enough as the mortality and morbidity rate continue to increase. Attempts to resolve this issue have been acted on only to be proven unsuccessful; however, the Senior Care plan, Smoking ban, and Restoration will be able to address the problem. The government as of now is having difficulty retaining proper health conditions in the Philippines especially for government owned hospitals. Due to unavailability of resources and inadequate services, public health in the Philippines is one of the reasons as to why it is an underdeveloped country. Because of this, the more developed countries are out shining the Philippines in terms of health care due to their advanced technology and sciences. The government should take into consideration the capabilities of other countries and follow in their footsteps. They should be able to mimic their capabilities and boost the Philippines into becoming a developed country. Having proper healthcare should always be attainable for the people of the people of the Philippines as health is one of the most important factors of life. It is important that people value their health in order to live long lives. With all the viruses and diseases circling the air, people should become conscious of their health and properly maintain it to avoid any sickness. Health must always be a priority, not a second choice. Because in the end, health is a person’s most valuable asset.
SOURCES
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