Paguigan, Joanna Kate B.

DM-12

Fundamentals of Public Health

“My Personal Experience in Public Health”.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most
shocking and inhumane." Growing up in Santo Thomas, Isabela, my family experienced this inhumanity.
My grandparents worked as farmers in the fields and my father is a driver and a mechanic that involves
repetitive motions, heavy machineries, and some chemicals that they often carry arround and handle.
They labored long hours with short breaks in stressful occupations, constantly worrying about becoming
injured or ill.

Translating for them in medical clinics, I saw the disconnect between doctor and patient in the form
of cultural insensitivity and some language barriers. When I was sick back when I was younger, lack of
health insurance meant that we depended on the services of a local clinic, or on homemade remedies
for there was no hospital during that time and the nearest one was located at the nearby municipality
which is 27 kilometers away.

Back in the year 2011, my grandfather has suffered severe abdominal pains in the and was later on
diagnosed as peptic ulcer. Though the disease was able to be determined, the medications and the
interventions given were poorly executed and applied. The hospital in the nearby municipality where my
grandfather has been admitted, lack health care facilities, machineries, and personels. As far as I cound
remember, our family members has been complaining for the old man was brought to the hospital and
was just checked upon three days later after his admission. The reasons provided were the doctor that
was supposed to read his charts and ultrasound results was busy, he could not make it due to some
personal errands and there were no other radiologic technologist to read the results.

Although it has been a decade since that incident happened, it's just saddening and frustrating as a
future health personel that the health care system in the country is fragmented up to this days. There is
a history of unfair and unequal access to health services that significantly affects the poor. The
government spends little money on the program which causes high out of pocket spending and further
widens the gap between rich and poor. Healthcare in the Philippines suffers from a shortage of human
medical resources, especially doctors. This makes the system run slower and less efficiently. Although
advances have been made to improve healthcare in the Philippines, there are still many issues that the
country has yet to overcome to achieve a high quality, cost efficient healthcare system.