VICE President Jejomar Binay has expressed frustration over the waste of medical funds worth billions of pesos because their allocation and disbursement are too centralized.
He said billions of pesos worth of medicines bought by the Department of Health do not reach local communities because of the loopholes in their distribution to local government units. The result is worse if an LGU is not allied to the ruling political party.
In his speech during the Galing Pook forum, Binay vowed to empower local government units should he become the next president, saying local government is the engine of growth.
“The law provides that the transfer of allotments should be automatic, but it has loopholes that a sitting president can use to abuse the procedure and impose his political bias against certain opposition LGUs,” Binay said.
He said lack of political authority hounds many local government officials, and this results in slow medical help to many residents in the far- flung provinces.
“Most of our provincial hospitals and even city hospitals do not have the necessary equipment to provide secondary health care,” Binay said.
“In other words, they are unable to perform their mandated functions out of sheer lack of resources.”
Binay said he is frustrated because many of the resources intended for medical help to the provinces go to waste because the allocation and disbursement of funds are still too centralized.
“So much of the medical funds go to waste because the [Health Department] buys medicines that are not needed by local communities,” he said.
“Our rural health units all over the country sorely lack the equipment they need to provide primary health care or even first aid kits for treating minor wounds.”