SENATORS on Saturday urged Philippine National Police chief Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa to go after the persons responsible in the killing of Dreyfuss Perlas, a barrio doctor gunned down in Lanao del Norte on March 1.
“Bato should make it his personal mission to find the killers of Dr. Perlas. As a government scholar himself, he should find it not hard to empathize with the familiar story of a Iskolar ng Bayan foregoing private practice for the happy but hardship post of serving the people,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto.
“As one who had spent most of his career in the hinterlands, Bato should be the first to know that rural deployment, while challenging, should not be paid with one’s life. Doctors take the famous oath to do no harm. But for them to carry out their duty, government should see to it that the rule—Do not harm doctors—is followed as well,” he added.
Only one in three slots in the government’s Doctor to the Barrios program was filled in 2015 and 2016, raising calls in the Senate to make the program’s incentives more attractive to lure more physicians to rural practice.
Recto revealed that of the 946 DTTB available slots in 2015 and in 2016, the Department of Health managed to recruit only 320 doctors in both years.
Because one DTTB physician is assigned per town, the implication therefore is that 626 low-income municipalities, and millions of their residents, were deprived of medical services for lack of takers, Recto said.
Recto noted that despite aggressive recruitment by the DoH, there were only a few takers for what is seen as a hardship post that pays P56,000 a month.
Senator Risa Honteveros, for her part, said Dr. Perlas was the latest victim of the culture of killing and impunity that has engulfed the country.
“We have few enough bright young doctors who are willing to serve in the provinces. I urge the authorities to identify his killers and bring them to justice,” she said.
Perlas was a 31-year-old physician who had been working under the Doctors to the Barrios program, and was assigned in Lanao del Norte.
Perlas was shot on Wednesday night while riding his motorbike in Barangay Maranding Annex.
He was rushed to Lanao del Norte Provincial Hospital but was declared dead upon arrival.
One of his fellow batchmates said that Perlas had the opportunity to return to his home province of Aklan, but chose to stay in Lanao del Norte even after his contract expired three years ago.
Hontiveros said the culture of death had reached the health sector.
“No one is safe anymore. Even those who are silently and selflessly working for the promotion of universal healthcare are not spared from an assassin’s bullet,” she said.
The senator urged the health community to express their strong indignation against the killing of Perlas.
“The current climate of violence under the Duterte government poses a serious threat to the people’s access to public health, and a mortal danger to the lives of health workers. We cannot allow this climate to continue unchanged,” Hontiveros said.
DoH officials, asked by Recto during last year’s budget hearing why they were having a hard time filling DTTB slots, cited “unattractive pay” and “the desire to undergo further training” as main reasons mentioned by those they were trying to recruit.
Recto, in a statement, urged the DoH to revisit the “benefits package” for the program, which is a lynchpin in the government’s move to increase doctors’ presence in poor areas.
But to guarantee a steady supply of doctors, Recto said the government may have to “infuse more incentives” into the medical scholarship program being run by the DOH, “by making it at par with what cadets at the Philippine Military Academy and Philippine National Police Academy get.”
“If taxpayers are spending P2.5 million to produce one PMA graduate, why can’t we spend the same in training future surgeons?” Recto asked.
Recto has been advocating for the “expansion and institutionalization” of DoH’s medical scholarship program.
He said the attractive package for future MDs could be included in his “One Town, One Doctor” bill, in which government will choose one medical student scholar per town—on the condition that when he becomes a doctor, he will go back to his town to serve for four years.
“In short, this is a ‘galing sa bayan, tungo sa bayan’ scheme of producing doctors. We pick from among the town’s best and brightest, finance his medical studies, and when he becomes a doctor, he repays it by serving his own people,” Recto said in his statement.
And while the doctor is doing his mandatory four-year community service, another bright young student from the same town starts medical schooling so that there will be a replacement after four or five years, Recto explained.
“If we’re facing a lack of rural doctors, this is one way to guarantee supply,” Recto said.
“This is one investment with a high social ROI.”
According to experts, the country’s public health system is grappling with a shortage of 60,000 doctors. As result, six out of 10 Filipinos die without seeing a doctor.
Under Recto’s “One Town, One Doctor” bill, the DoH-administered scholarship will cover “tuition, laboratory, miscellaneous fees, and all school fees; textbooks, supplies and equipment; clothing and uniform allowances; traveling, subsistence and living expenses.”
To qualify, an applicant must belong to the upper 30 percent of a graduating class of any pre-Med course and have been accepted to medical school.
If no one from a town qualifies for the program, the allotted slot may be assumed by a scholar coming from another town in the same province.
The scholar, however, upon getting his license to practice will have to serve in the town which provided the slot.