United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) party senatorial candidate Jejomar Binay on Friday said if elected, he will bring preventive health care closer to the people, especially in the provinces.
“Preventive health care should be a priority. These are ways to prevent getting sick. This would, in turn, help reduce the strain on the public health system placed by expenditures on treating debilitating and even life-threatening diseases,” he said.
The former vice president said preventive health measures include mass immunization or vaccination, nutrition, promoting healthy lifestyles, proper sanitation, community-based health programs, and traditional medicine.
“Most illnesses are preventable. Government should emphasize preventing illnesses since the state of the people’s health also has an impact on the economy,” he said.
“Healthy citizens are the foundation of a vibrant economy. If I win, the health of every Filipino will be one of our priorities,” he added.
Binay made the statement after the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) recently released a report showing the leading causes of deaths in the country in 2021.
The report said ischaemic heart diseases are the leading cause of death from January to October 2021, with 110,332 cases or 18.3 percent of total deaths in the country.
This is an increase of about 28 percent from the 86,164 deaths recorded in the same period in 2020.
Other top causes of death in 2021 were cerebrovascular diseases, deaths due to COVID-19 virus, neoplasms or commonly known as cancer, and diabetes mellitus.
“Every Filipino has the right to receive medical services from the government. And the government must provide it,” Binay said.