Health care issues

CHEERS TO ABS-CBN 2’s Failon Ngayon for looking into several issues in the Philippine health care system.

Failon Ngayon on August 23 aired special reports  probing a  Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP)- funded stem cell study, and looking at the ‘no payment no treatment’ practice of several private and public hospitals in the country.

The news and current affairs show documented the accounts of several patients in the Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP) who have been having problems  in supporting the costs of their medication and  treatment. The program questioned the need for stem cell research in the context of the lack of quality health services and facilities.

Failon Ngayon interviewed patients of the LCP and their families who said they would have preferred that the government spent the funds on the health needs of  poor people. One even said that the DAP funded study was “pangmayaman (for the rich).”

Health Secretary Enrique Ona and LCP executive director Jose Luis Danguilan stressed that  the study  would benefit everyone whether rich and poor. The latter said that the findings of the study can help develop vaccines for respiratory diseases including tuberculosis.

Another health issue raised in the August 23 episode of Failon Ngayon was the “no payment, no treatment” policy common to many hospitals. The news program chronicled the experience of patients who were refused admission in hospitals because they could not produce the money required by the hospital for processing. One was  a mother in Mindanao whose daughter died after being refused admission into the Butuan Doctors’ Hospital in Agusan del Norte because she did not have the Php30,000.00 required by the hospital as  admission deposit. The story became viral when the mother posted her sentiments about the incident in the social networking site Facebook.

The officials of Butuan Doctors’ Hospital denied the allegation while health officials said that they were already looking into the issue.

The current affairs program recalled Section 1 of Republic Act 8344, which was approved August 25, 1997 declaring as unlawful  the refusal to confine  or provide medical treatment to anyone during an emergency situation.