Experts, LGUs back healthcare system bills

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) and Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) have expressed support for bills seeking to strengthen the country’s healthcare system, which were filed by Sen. Bong Go, chair of the committee on health and demography.

Some of the bills tackled include measures seeking to improve the process in increasing the bed capacity of government hospitals, address the lack of quarantine facilities, establishment of sub-national laboratories and to strengthen the country’s disease surveillance and epidemiologic investigation system.

During yesterday’s hearing at the Senate, Quirino Gov. Dakila Carlo Cua expressed agreement with the proposed measures, saying that ULAP fully supports the empowerment of the DOH to increase bed capacity of hospitals in the country.

The ULAP president also expressed support for President Duterte’s and Go’s call to help overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) during these times of pandemic.

“We are doing our best to accommodate and welcome home our new age heroes, our OFWs,” Cua said.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III also voiced similar support to further empower the national and local governments in dealing with public health emergencies.

He added that he also supports measures which seek to protect health professionals from occupational threats associated with their job.

League of Provinces of the Philippines president and Marinduque Gov. Presbitero Velasco Jr. also expressed support for the bills. Health experts from the Association of Municipal Health Officers of the Philippines, the Philippine Hospital Association, Philippine Medical Association, Philippine Alliance of Patient Organization and the National Privacy Commission, among others, also manifested support for the proposed measures.

Among Go’s filed bills, Senate Bill 1226, or the proposed DOH Hospital Bed Capacity and Service Capability Rationalization Act, aims to authorize the DOH to increase the bed capacity and service capability of its retained hospitals and to allow it to promulgate evaluation and approval guidelines.

During the hearing, Go lamented the poor hospital bed-to-population ratio of the country, saying that “general hospital beds to the population was one to 1,142, exceeding the ideal ratio of one is to 1,000.”

He added that DOH hospitals are constrained by the lack of adequate staffing, maintenance and operating resources to fully provide the quality of health care that their patients deserve.

Go also filed SB 1259 or the “Mandatory Quarantine Facilities Act of 2020” which mandates the establishment of quarantine facilities in every region in the country.

According to Go, quarantine mechanisms are a long-established public health strategy in order to prevent transmission and should be part of the standard precautions taken to prevent the spread of any infectious disease.

“The proposed measures filed aim to address this need and establish quarantine facilities all throughout the country,” he added.

The senator also seeks to strengthen the country’s efforts in disease surveillance and epidemiologic investigation. SB 1528 filed by Go intends to amend Republic Act 11332, also known as the “Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act.”

Go cited several key areas that need amendments during the hearing, including changes addressing the lack of sub-national laboratories; mandating the establishment of hotlines where the public can report a public health concern and mandating the assistance of the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the conduct of contact tracing.

Meanwhile, Duque admitted that the Philippines’ testing capacity in view of the coronavirus pandemic is the “number one weakness” in the country’s health system.

According to the health chief, there is a need to increase the number of sub-national laboratories to ramp up the country’s testing capacity.

Ending the hearing, Go acknowledged the need to improve the country’s capacity in addressing pandemics like COVID-19.

“We hope that the measures we have discussed today will address some of our weaknesses and gaps in handling public health emergencies,” Go said. “Let the pandemic be a lesson to all of us and use this experience to improve our health system.”