THE Duterte administration will continue to give priority to Universal Health Care to cover the 20 million “poorest among the poor” and attain the sustainable development goal targets, Health Secretary Jean Paulyn Rosell-Ubial said Sunday.
Ubial said they had already built the country’s health sector reform agenda or the “Duterte Reform Health Agenda” around what had already been accomplished by the previous administration.
“We’re focused on giving insurance coverage to the poorest Filipinos,” said Ubial who was assistant health secretary for health regulations since 2008 before she was appointed to head the Department of Health.
She said Duterte had ordered her to improve the access to public health by the 20 million poorest of the poor.
She had committed to impart her knowledge and experience to realize the Duterte administration’s mission “All for Health towards Health for all,” and the national health objectives of financial risk protection, better health outcomes, responsiveness, access, efficiency and quality.
Duterte has promised that Filipinos will be protected from health-related impoverishment, that they will attain the best possible health outcomes, and feel respected and valued in all of their interaction with the health systems.
The intermediate outcomes that are hoped to be achieved are the following: Filipinos are able to access services with the least financial, cultural and geographical barriers; they receive quality and compassionate services at par with global clinical and non-clinical standards, and they are able to get the most health from the investment resources.
To achieve universal health insurance, Ubial said, her department’s Service Delivery Network should be boosted and the Triple Disease Burden Case addressed.
By strengthening the delivery networks for those living in the far-flung areas, Ubial said, health care workers will reach out to the communities instead of the other way around.
Anthony Leachon, independent director of PhilHealth, raised concern over the compensation of health care professionals that he claimed remained “pathetically low,” leading to the massive migration of doctors and nurses to greener pastures abroad.
“We have human health resource crisis now. We are the number one exporter of nurses and the number 2 exporter of doctors in the world next to India,” said Leachon as he stressed the number of Filipinos who died without seeing a health care worker (doctor, nurse, dentist, midwife) had surged to 66 percent from 45 percent.
Leachon, also president of the Philippine College of Physicians Foundation Inc., cited the shortage of doctors particularly in the Visayas and Mindanao or in the poorest areas in the Philippines.