Advocacy group Universal Healthcare (UHC) Watch warned that patient lives are at stake in the country’s hospitals amid the lack of a standardized nutrition care process (NCP) as it welcomed legislative progress on a bill to institutionalize it.
UHC noted that Senate Bill No. 1213, or the Wastong Nutrisyon sa Ospital Act, was read on first reading and referred to two committees on Sept. 15, 2025.
“Poor nutrition leads to longer hospital stays, bigger expenses for families, hospital congestion and in the worst cases, death. This is a reality already happening across the country,” UHC Watch said in a statement.
The measure seeks to institutionalize the NCP as an essential component of medical care, ensuring patients receive proper nutrition alongside medicine to aid recovery.
The urgency for enhanced nutrition care was recently underscored at a forum organized by the think tank Stratbase Institute.
The institute’s policy paper noted that successful NCP implementation in the Philippines is crucial for improving the population’s nutritional status and health outcomes.
UHC Watch lauded the filing of SB 1213 by Senator JV Ejercito and House Bill No. 3806 by Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and Abante Mindanao Party-list Rep. Maximo Rodriguez Jr., calling the move a “potential game-changer” for people-centered healthcare.
Ejercito said in his explanatory note that the measure aligns with global development priorities.
He noted that the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) framework includes the objective to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” among its 17 overall goals.
Rodriguez echoed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) stance on nutrition’s crucial role, saying that the bill aims to enhance current laws by “mandating the implementation of the Nutrition Care Process, an internationally recognized standard approach for practitioners in nutrition and dietetics.”
They added that the measure would grant Filipinos access to effective, cost-efficient tools for improving their quality of life and recovery.
The proposed legislation introduces a standardized, evidence-based approach to nutrition care, covering assessment, diagnosis, intervention and follow-up. It mandates hospitals to use a Department of Health (DOH)-approved tool to screen all admitted patients to identify those who are “nutritionally at risk.”
UHC Watch, composed of patients and civil society organizations, said nutrition care is an issue of equity, especially for vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly, and patients with chronic illnesses.
“When nutrition is neglected, the most vulnerable suffer the most. By passing this bill, Congress is sending a message that every Filipino’s health matters,” the group said.
