MANILA – The Philippines needs at least 42,000 hospital beds and more doctors in public hospitals to meet the medical assistance needs of Filipinos, Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial said Monday.
At the hearing of the agency’s proposed budget for 2018, Ubial said the current ratio of hospital bed per population in the National Capital Region (NCR) is 1:800. In the “most desperate areas” such as the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the Health official said the ratio is 1:4,200.
“Across the country, we are lacking 42,000 beds. No wonder most of our hospitals are over-occupied [by anywhere from] from 150 percent to 250 percent,” she said.
Ubial also noted that the country was not producing enough doctors for the rural communities, as the concentration remains in urban centers.
“Right now, we are planning to have scholarships for doctors, midwives and nurses in geographically-isolated areas. We are hoping they would go back,” she said, adding that part of the responsibility of the beneficiaries would be to serve the barrios for at least two years.
For 2018, the DOH was seeking P103.62 billion in new appropriations focused mainly on health policy and standards development program, public health, epidemiology and surveillance program, health emergency management, social health protection and health facilities operation.
The amount of P29.03 billion has been appropriated for the implementation of the Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFEP) for the construction, upgrading, expansion, rehabilitation and repair or land acquisition for barangay health stations, rural health units, local government unit hospitals, specialized hospitals, regional medical centers, dangerous drugs abuse treatment centers and rehabilitation centers and other health care facilities.
The budget is also for the purchase of hospital equipment for government health care facilities, which can provide affordable and quality health care.
Ubial said they have requested the Department of Budget and Management to allow the agency to realign the HFEP – the P2.6 billion set aside in 2017 for the construction of rehabilitation centers throughout the country.
She said the private sector has donated nine “mega treatment and rehabilitation centers,” which are in various phases of inauguration and construction in select areas. The centers will each have a capacity of 500 beds or more.
Meanwhile, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman noted the P342-million proposed budget for the purchase of modern family planning commodities such as contraceptives for 2018, which falls short of the P563 million requirement as estimated by the DOH.
Ubial said the lower proposed budget was due to the availability of P250 million worth of contraceptives in DOH warehouses. Several contraceptive implants, such as Implanon and Implanon NXT, have been the subject of a temporary restraining order of the Supreme Court, which made their certification, procurement and access difficult.
“May we know whether those stocks are still current and have not yet expired?” Lagman said. Ubial assured him that the contraceptives can still be used up to September 2018.
