Gov’t to Fast-Track Dev’t of Health Infra

Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Paulyn Jean B. Rosell-Ubial on Monday said that the DOH is focused on fast-tracking the development of health infrastructure to improve the delivery of health services.

At a press briefing in Malacanan, Ubial said the government envisioned to have one doctor per five barangays and one health station per barangay within the six-year term of President Rodrigo R. Duterte in line with PRRD’s pronouncement of implementing a human approach to development and governance in improving the people’s welfare.

The top health official recently led a delegation to Havana, Cuba to study the Cuban public healthcare system in a bid to implement an effective health system in the Philippines.

She said the DOH needs at least Php 57 billion, which is mainly for the salaries of health workers that include doctors, nurses and midwives, as an intervention to the country’s public health system.

According to Ubial, Cuba’s healthcare system is anchored on the human resource complement, producing adequate numbers of health professionals, particularly doctors.

In Cuba, there is one doctor for every 1,075 persons, while in the Philippines, we have one doctor for every 33,000 people. The World Health Organization standard for public health is one doctor for a population of 20,000.

Ubial said the Cuban health system was actually based on a principle of prioritization, allocating about 28 percent of their national budget to the health sector and USD 460 per capita expenditure on health, compared to the Philippines’ USD 76 per capita expenditure on health based on the 2015 budget.

The DOH chief disclosed that her Cuban counterparts “indicated to me that they are willing to have capacity building and exchanges in the future. I’m sure that our universal health care dream will benefit from the lesson that we learned from the Cuban model and we will continue to have this cooperation and relationship with the Cuban Ministry of Health so that we can implement some of their best practices.” (PNA) RMA/PND/EDS