Universal health care program pushed

Health Secretary Francisco Duque and other executives and health professionals across the country gather in Cebu for the three-day National Health Sector Meeting, which is already on its second run, to discuss the improved health strategy map.

Duque said by boosting the country’s universal health care, the hospitals at the district and provincial levels and DOH-retained hospitals like Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City may be decongested. There is no need to build additional medical facilities. The solution, Duque said, is to correct the poor health system at the “downstream” by enhancing the provision of primary health care or the basic health services at the barangay or rural and city health units.

He said one approach is to employ capacity building to level up performance of local health workers.

He identified that one of the weakest links of the country’s health care system is that the basic delivery of services, even for mild cases, is not addressed at the primary level like the barangay health centers or line clinics.

The other downside is the people’s behavior or trait that they only seek consultation or medication once their health condition is already at the worst stage and so they have to be referred directly to the hospital.

He said the Universal Health Care program has its desired target which is to set up one health station per 5,000 population of a barangay; and one rural health clinic per 10,000 population of a town.

Once this goal is achieved, a hospital with an ideal ratio of one bed per patient can be applied to every 800 population instead of the current 120,000 population.

He said the Universal Health Care aims to prioritize the poor sector that they do not have to be troubled with hospital bills.

But on the local setting like in Cebu province, even if a poor family does not have to pay huge expenses at government-owned hospitals, they also crowd inside the rooms and patients even share the same hospital bed.

Through the enhanced health strategy map, DOH aims to ensure the accessibility of essential health services at appropriate levels of care.