PM 241 – INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC POLICY AND PROGRAM

ADMINISTRATION

Faculty-Marked Assignment – 1
Opinion – Editorial

CERTIFICATION AGAINST INTELLECTUAL FRAUD AND DISHONESTY

I hereby declare, upon my honor, that what I have written in this FMA are the products
of my own personal intellect and I have made the proper attribution of sources and
references. In the event that it is established by competent authorities that what I have
written in this FMA had been obtained by me through fraudulent use of ideas or
information belonging to other persons, I will accept the corresponding penalty or
sanction corresponding to such dishonest conduct.

MEL ANGELO T. ABRACIA February 19, 2023

FULL NAME OF STUDENT SIGNATURE OF STUDENT DATE
 Pandemic and the Philippine Health Care System

Last March 2020, the Philippines shut off its borders in order to control and mitigate the
disease outbreak in the country that is affecting the whole world which is the COVID 19
pandemic. Almost three (3) years have already passed, but still, even though the
country already opened its borders and remove its restrictions, COVID 19 is still present
in the country and continues to infect the Filipino citizens. But setting aside COVID 19,
there is a lingering question that keeps bothering me, and that is can the Philippines
survive to another pandemic level situation given the current health care system that we
have?

When the pandemic begun, aside from the closure of the economy, what hit the most is
the fact that the healthcare system of the Philippines is not ready for a pandemic level
event. It showed us that we have a very limited hospital capacity and limited personnel
to handle the large group of patients coming in and out the hospitals, private and public.
It also exposed that the past administrations did not invest to the improvement or
development of the health care system of the country as they are mainly focused on the
development of economy, particularly in infrastructure, social economic responsibility
and investments by building ties with other neighboring countries.

As the country have limited hospital capacity, it is harder for the patient to find a hospital
that could accommodate them especially in the most crucial times and if ever the patient
could be admitted, the time before the patient be given health services takes time due to
limited healthcare professional available. Per the DOH secretary, when COVID 19
pandemic strike, the hospital bed capacity already managed to increase by 300% but it
is still not enough to cater COVID 19 patients on top of other diseases patients. For the
healthcare professionals, the standard set by DOH for nurse-to-patient ratio is 1:12 but
the actual is at 1:20, for doctors, WHO standard is 1:10,000 but the actual is at
1:33,000.

So, what does the government needs to do in order to solve the problem of
undermanned healthcare facilities and limited hospital beds, it is by improving the
current healthcare system of the country and invest in new technologies, infrastructure
and to its people. But in order to attain this, we need to know the root cause of the
problem.

In the case of limited hospital facilities and bed, just like here in my current residence in
Naic Cavite, there are only two hospitals that caters the whole population of the city.
The total number of hospital beds combined is 50 while the total population of Naic
Cavite is 160,987 in 2020 based on philatlas.com. With this, we could already see that
the hospitals in the area is not enough to cater even 1/8 th of the population. The national
government, in coordination with DOH, PSA, LGU, Barangay and hospital
administrators should have a meeting to know the statistics of patient, the disease and
conditions in order to establish the right number of hospitals and capacity, either public
or private, that should be constructed and the appropriate facilities that each hospitals
should have.

For the poor number of healthcare professionals in the country, the main reason is due
to the low compensation and not enough benefits being given to them which resulted for
them to find and apply a job overseas. Per the research done by iPrice Group (2020),
the Philiipines offers the lowest salary in Southeast Asia for Nurses and medical
technologist with an average salary of PhP 40,831 per month while the highest is in
Singapore which is around PhP 236,400 per month. The national government should do
steps in managing and controlling the migrating of healthcare professionals to other
neighboring countries such making a policy in standardization of salary for healthcare
professionals that is on par with other countries or having a certain number of years of
service and experience to the country before being allowed to work overseas.

If the Government will not do actions to mitigate the existing problem in the current
health care system of the country, we will never be ready to another pandemic level
disease that could come tomorrow and/or on the coming weeks, months or years that
will not only affect its citizens but also the economy that the administration is trying to
improve and develop for the past years.