EDITORIAL - Universal coverage

The government wants the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. to provide universal coverage. Alongside this scheme will be the phase-out of charity wards. With the high cost of medical treatment, health insurance is a big help. There are several problems, however, that the government must address if it wants the PhilHealth scheme to be a success.

One is to ensure that all hospitals currently offering charity services will sign up for PhilHealth accreditation. Another is to speed up the processing of PhilHealth claims. Hospital administrators and patients alike have complained of slow processing of claims.

If these issues are not sufficiently addressed when charity wards are completely shut down, it could deprive indigent patients of health care. Millions of Filipinos are not regularly employed and may find PhilHealth enrollment difficult. Shutting down charity wards could deprive the poor of their principal access to health care. Health care facilities are inadequate enough, and the situation is bound to get worse as health services fail to expand and keep pace with the demands of a growing population.

A visit to any government health center will show the seriousness of the problem. At the Philippine General Hospital, for example, non-emergency patients spill out into the curb, waiting for their turn to be treated. In many hospitals, new mothers share not just rooms in charity wards but also beds; the crowding has led to infant deaths due to sepsis in recent years. In some private health centers that charge reasonable fees, patients start lining up as early as 5 a.m. just to undergo blood testing.

For millions of Filipinos, complex but necessary medical procedures such as heart bypass surgeries are a luxury they are forced to do without. For these millions, afflictions that require long treatment such as regular kidney dialysis are tantamount to a death warrant; they simply wait for the body to succumb to the disease. In aiming for universal PhilHealth coverage, the government should make sure the poor, who are the principal beneficiaries of the scheme, do not end up being even more deprived of health care.