Pipol Power

Progressive Philippine congress man Satur Ocampo (Bayan Muna) made a privilege speech last September 7 to draw attention to the deterioration of the Philippine public health care system. The speech is based on a survey done by the health alliance, Kilosbayan Para sa Kalusugan, in 13 public hospitals from August 29 to September 2, 2004 showed that 89% of the patient respondents had to wait from three days to one month before they were admitted to the hospital. Most of the respondents, or at least 61%, said they had no money to pay for admission fee; another 17.3% said there were no beds available. Some even had to wait for one to two years to be admitted. Poor patients cannot get treatment even for emergency cases in public hospitals if they cannot shell out P500 to P2,000 for admission fee.

Meanwhile, the health budget has declined by about 40 percent in the past 8 years. In 1996, per capita spending on health amounted to P230, but the current spending is now only P114 – or 37 centavos a day. This amount is not even enough to buy a tablet of Biogesic, or its generic version, which costs P1.