Barely a week before President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s third State of the Nation ‘s Address (SONA), Health Alliance for Democracy (HEAD) bared the signs and symptoms of worsening people ‘s health crisis in a press conference held today in Quezon City.
“For the past two years, Marcos Jr. neglected and failed to prioritize people’s health and the rights and protection for health workers. This result to unprecedented poverty and hardships and worsening ill health, especially to the poor Filipino majority,” said Dr. Edelina dela Paz, HEAD Chairperson.
Dela Paz said that diseases of poverty like tuberculosis is on the rise. Malnutrition is still prevalent with the Philippines ranking fifth among countries with highest number of stunted children in East Asia and the Pacific Region.
“Our people have difficulty accessing health care. Household out of pocket health expenses are still high at 44.7% of total health expenditures,” said Dela Paz, citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority.
The average cost of the total hospital bill in 2022 among those confined was P46, 640, more than three times the NCR minimum wage of only P610/day or P13,420/month.
These signs and symptoms are due to the inadequate health budget for 2024, more privatization of health care under the Universal Health care, and inadequacy of PhilHealth to protect the Filipinos from health financial hardships.
While the people are paying high out-of-pocket expenses, Philhealth is earning so much profit that the Department of Finance wants to get the surplus funds for other unprogrammed expenses like Maharlika Investment.
Philhealth has become a milking cow for corrupt officials and companies, with reports of irregularities and corruption, Dela Paz explained.
The Marcos Jr. administration’s implementation of neoliberal policies in health like budget cuts, privatization, and fee for service, flexible work arrangements for health workers, and labor export of health personnel, foreign monopoly in the drug industry along with agricultural and rice liberalization, dependence on foreign investments, deregulation and liberalization of public utilities have failed to improve and instead lead to worsening of poverty and health situation.
For their prescription, Dela Paz said that free and accessible health care can be achieved with massive changes in the health care system and concomitant resolution of the root causes of poverty and economic underdevelopment.
This means providing an adequate budget for health, strengthening state-funded public health care, scrapping privatization in health while addressing landlessness and strengthening the local industries.
“HEAD together with the Filipino people whom we serve will continue to struggle for comprehensive, progressive, free, and accessible health care and oppose the program and policies that cause further ill health and poverty,” ended Dela Paz.
