A few nights ago, I came across the second episode of GMA Network’s Philippine Agenda. It was a tragic and morbid episode that tackled the public health services situation in the country. Tragic, obviously because the whole health sector situation is tragic in the first place, and morbid because two of the program’s subjects, after being shown struggling with their conditions, eventually die on screen. They couldn’t afford check-ups, nor the medicines, nor the other hospital fees. [Part of the documentary can be watched here].
When asked why public hospitals, which should ideally render much of its services for free, extract fees from things as minute as a patient’s use of a hospital bed, a government doctor said, “The government’s not giving us enough. We are being told to generate our own income.”
What an all too familiar line, even in the University of the Philippines.
From tuition increases in UP to fee increases in government hospitals, these have to be seen as part of a real and ongoing state policy of slowly abandoning social services. These has to be seen as a real and ongoing state policy of following dictations from foreign financial institutions. They are not unrelated situations.
Many even among my fellow students simply and more importantly, conveniently just tow the government and the conservatives’ lines–that there is not enough money, that there is nothing we can do about it but extract the income from the people themselves. But these shouldn’t be solved by simply giving up and surrendering to this constructed, and more importantly inflicted, ‘reality’. It shouldn’t be solved by absolving the government of its duties by allowing public hospitals, public schools and state universities to generate their own income through tuition increases and other fee increases. Still, campaigns for greater state subsidy and other such policy shifts for social services must be intensified.
Yes, it’s election time once more, and though this is one of the people’s ways of manifesting their aspirations, it’s not the only democratic and participative way of demanding and implementing changes. And with such a huge clout of doubt in the integrity of such a “democratic process,” we can’t simply pin our hopes just on this.
law student, leftist, national democratic, film school graduate, photography hobbyist
Seriously, revenue-generation isn’t mutually exclusive to the lack thereof government subsidies. But let’s give props to government doctor. Because it’s true that government is stupid. They use “building hospitals” as part of their programmes when it comes to their campaign when the problem really isn’t the “need for hospital” but simply “better hospitals.”
BTW, you can’t simply put tertiary education and public health parallel to each other. Although there’s the same problem of building more and having poor subsidies for each one of them, a lot of it really have to do with poor government planning as well. And even if government poured a lot on health services, you would still have bad hospitals (who’ll take advantage of the subsidies without doing anything positive) and good hospitals (that will end up being overcrowded). So yes, it’s pretty much a complicated problem, you can’t reduce everything to “government isn’t giving enough.”
That’s what governments are for, to provide for basic social services to the people. If we are going to be told by the government or this government to fend for our selves, they might as well stop collecting taxes from us.
hay… masakit na katotohanan., but the govt is not really doing its part in providing the basic needs of its citizens.
Bikoy,
Nabasa mo na ba ito?
LOL
Kakakilig. Hahaha
I also saw that episode and it sort of captured the essence of the status of Philippine health at present. The problem lies mainly in three aspects: infrastructure, health manpower and local politics. We are all too familiar with the problem of a lack of health infrastructure all over the country. However in response to a post above, there IS also a need for more hospitals and more importantly local health centers which are supposed to handle ‘simple’ illnesses. Add to that the problem of hospitals which are poorly equipped and poorly staffed such that personnel (and students like me) experience hell everytime we go on duty. Furthermore, we are currently experiencing not just a brain drain but a ‘brain hemorrhage’ of health manpower (doctors, nurses and other health professionals) what with better compensation and working conditions abroad. Finally, the problem also lies with local politics because of the current devolution of health care to the local governments. This means that funding and implementation for health services in the local level comes from the local government. The national government merely spends for national health programs (such as the National TB/DOTS Program) and regional and national hospitals. All the rest is up to the respective local governments. This means that if your mayor or governor does not have health on his or her priority agenda, sorry ka na lang. The sad reality is that even for idealistic student leaders like me, the Philippines will never compete with foreign countries in terms of financial compensation and working conditions for health manpower even if the government raises the salaries of doctors and nurses nationwide. Yes, the Philippines can improve its health status (decrease TB, decrease infant mortality, decrease maternal mortality etc.) but I think that in the long term the Philippines will have a difficulty pulling itself out of the health manpower crisis it is currently in.
Hello,
My name is Jerome Herrera. I am the owner of Pinoy Penster Community website. Pinoy Penster Community is an online community of Filipino Writers. I was wondering if we could exchange links. This will give your blog a wonderful opportunity for exposure to our hundreds of visitors everyday. If you are interested, please email me at jeromeherrera2006@gmail.com. The URL of Pinoy Penster Community is http://penster.fyi.ph
i’ll be brave to finally comment in one of your posts after a long time of stalking, just because i’m not so much into politics and social issues, but this happens to fall on my court being a student nurse..
just a wild idea…since most of our government officials’ expenses are extracted from the taxes we pay, then why not create a law forcing them to be hospitalized or obtain services from public/government hospitals in order to cut down expenses..tignan ko lang kung di nila paayos yang mga yan!
the situation about public health is like a dark alley that no one dares to traverse or even glimpse at. even the district hospital in our President’s hometown resembles an abandoned building. most of the government hospitals do not even meet the standards of screening committees, but still they continue to operate just to serve the indigent.sad but true.
Wow, nice way of presenting data, you should have been more active during comm 141, baka mas na-enjoy ko pa yung class. Anyways, regarding the SAPs imposed by IMF/WB/ADB: it is stated kasi na the gov’t should veer away from social services dahil di na daw ito part ng kanyang function and would only drag the economy. Although may study sa U.N. (o well, this is more related sa TOFI kaysa sa health) na education (and perhaps all social service) is a right and therfore should be available to everyone at all times.