DOH highlights accomplishments for SONA 2019

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) yesterday reported its accomplishments as its contributions to the Human Development and Poverty Reduction Cabinet Cluster’s input to the 2019 State of the Nation Address.

From July 2018 to June 2019, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the agency was able to deploy 31,157 health personnel nationwide to complement the existing pool of health professionals at local government units.

The deployment was intended to ease the inequitable distribution of health workers.

Duque said workers were assigned especially to “high poverty, geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas and municipalities with indigenous peoples.”

He said this means that 75 percent or 31,415 of 42,036 barangays were assisted with health workers.

The DOH granted full scholarships to 1,831 medical and midwifery students and 271 scholars for the in-service scholarships program to address the human resources gap.

It said patients in government hospitals usually had to pay more than half or 54.2 percent of their total medical expenses.

To ease their burden, the DOH said a total of 17.5 million Filipinos were enrolled in the national health insurance program from July 2018 to this year.

The figure is higher than the 329,519 Filipinos who were enrolled in 2017.

Aside from this, about 1.4 million indigent patients received financial assistance under the DOH medical assistance for indigents program to cover their hospital expenses.

The DOH also reported the laws that were passed during this period that impacted on the health of Filipinos.

These are Republic Act 11223 or the Universal Health Care Act, RA 11166 or the Philippine HIV and AIDS Policy Act, RA 11215 or the National Integrated Cancer Control Act and RA 10963, which imposed taxes on sweetened beverages as part of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Package.

Duque said some of the highlights of the above landmark laws included automatic inclusion of all Filipinos in the National Health Insurance Program, greater access to essential HIV/AIDS health services, free and accessible treatment to those living with HIV/AIDS, affordable cancer treatment and services through establishment of specialty cancer centers and the earmarking of tax revenues primarily for nutrition and provision of potable water supply in schools and public spaces.

“With all the efforts we have exerted, we are confident that we have created a big impact on improving the lives of every Filipino,” Duque said.