THE health agenda of President Rodrigo Duterfe, with the unifying battle cry of “All for Health towards Health for All,” was unveiled by Health Secretary Paulyn Jean B. Rosell-Ubial at the 6th Apec High Level Meeting of Health Ministers in Lima, Peru.
Ubial said universal health care is still the centerpiece and the Duterte administration intends to prioritize the coverage of 20 million of the “poorest among the poor” Filipinos.
Duterte had earlier directed Ubial to improve public-health access to the lowest quintile of the population that involves about 20-million Filipinos and she said the Duterte agenda is more focussed on insurance coverage for the poorest Filipinos.
Ubial led the Philippine delegation which joined other panelists who shared country actions to address challenges in meeting the targets of Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and express commitment for advancing the implementation of Healthy Asia Pacific 2020.
Once the Duterte Health Agenda is finalized, Ubial said it will eliminate disparities in health outcomes especially among the poor and highly vulnerable populations.
“The over-all strategic thrust is bringing together key stakeholders that will work towards improving access to health services at the same time greatly reducing out-of-pocket costs,” she said.
The health ministers expressed their overwhelming satisfaction and approval to the new Health Agenda.
The call of the meeting for whole government approach was articulated by Secretary Ubial with the recent inclusion of Reproductive Health in the 10-Point Economic Agenda of the Duterte Administration.
The DoH chief and other officials shall continue their official visit in Havana, Cuba on August 23-26 to learn about Cuba’s popular health system and have a fruitful exchange of information with health authorities.
She said the special visit was strongly endorsed by Duterte who was impressed with Cuba’s successes in public health. She said it’s very, very famous worldwide.
“I have been telling the President I already studied the Cuban health system—on how they implement primary health care. Their focus is actually primary health care and not hospital care,” said Ubial.
“It’s primary health care at the community level. That’s what we are also trying to implement right now—community-based mental health, community-based rehabilitation services and all that,” further stated Ubial in an interview.