The Philippine health system has been at a breaking point even before COVID-19, but the pandemic exposed and magnified the gaps in the fragmented system.
Leadership is crucial in effecting reforms in the health system, with various issues such as corruption, inclusion, brain drain and others necessitating attention and significant policy change anchored on a people-centered approach.
A special study by medical doctors Eleanor Jara, Magdalena Barcelon, and Katharina Anne Berza seeking to shed light on reforming the country’s battered health system was launched last week at a virtual forum organized by leading think-tank Stratbase ADR Institute, with multi-sectoral stakeholder groups.
The paper is entitled Beyond Health Measures: Towards A Genuine People’s Health Agenda.
“Health services should neither be an issue of privilege nor charity. This may be ensured by empowering communities that are able to provide preventive services and assert their right to avail of curative services from public health facilities,” the authors said.
“A people-centered health care system catering to the needs of the poor should be founded on the basic tenets of equity, social justice, and people’s rights,” they added.
Berza, Director for Advocacy, Public Information and Research Department Council for Health and Development, said Filipinos were still dying of preventable and curable diseases, corruption compromises health financing, and barangay health stations’ manpower complement is sorely lacking given the rate of brain drain among health professionals.
“The Department of Health should be strengthened by making the agency more accountable to our national health care system and emboldened to cater to the health needs of the Filipino people,” she said.
The authors envision a system that “can weather all pandemics and value the people’s health needs and overall well-being.”
Maria Fatima Garcia-Lorenzo, Universal Healthcare Watch (UHC Watch) co-convenor and President of the Philippine Alliance of Patient Organizations, said that the use of digital technology can contribute to an integrated people-centered national healthcare system.
“The use of electronic medical records will ease the patients’ navigation from one health center to another. And patients’ data, which includes information on cultural and family background, can assist medical teams in understanding the patient and reaching appropriate diagnosis and treatment. This will also lessen the patients’ out-of-pocket expenses from diagnostic procedures,” she said.
“The next Secretary of Health must have integrity, have very good managerial skills, and should be innovative enough to integrate into the health agenda programs that will address issues on hunger, environment, etc. and bold enough to shift the health system from being doctor-centric to becoming patient-centric,” Garcia-Lorenzo said.
Stratbase ADRI president Professor Victor Andres “Dindo” Manhit, in his statement during the forum, said the choice of a president in the May elections is crucial to achieving health reform.
“Our next leaders should give high priority to addressing the mounting socio-economic and health issues brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as continuing political issues such as corruption,” he said.
“[But] it cannot be done by one president that we will elect, but it needs a whole-of-society approach,” Manhit said.