Access to hospital services for all Filipinos pushed
GOVERNMENT hospitals are not at all capable of supporting the ideal hospital bed to population ratio, prompting Deputy Speaker and 1-Pacman party-list Rep. Michael Romero to file a bill seeking to ensure access and availability of hospital services and facilities to all Filipinos.
Under the House Bill (HB) 7300, Romero, president of the 54-strong Party-list Coalition Foundation Inc. (PCFI), said the establishment of new hospitals shall be regulated based on a set of criteria as embodied under prevailing laws providing a comprehensive population to hospital beds ratio to foster the availability, access and distribution of health facilities and services to all patients.
According to Romero based on 2018 data, the ratio of government-owned hospital beds to population stands at 1: 2,320. Many numbers away from the hospital bed to population ratio that the Philippine Health Facility Development Plan 2017-2022 of the Department of Health (DoH) has set as target of one hospital bed for every 800 citizens or 1: 800.
The DoH’s National Health Facility Registry list has a total of 89,700 hospital beds. Of these figures, government-owned hospitals account for 47,645 or only 53 percent of the beds, including 33,008 (69 percent) in Luzon; 6,767 or (14 percent) in the Visayas; and 7,870 or (17 percent) in Mindanao.
Romero said that his proposal’s objective would only become possible if both public and private hospitals would provide just compensation to healthcare providers and invest on infrastructure and facilities such as acquisition of new hospital beds to accommodate the healthcare needs of the growing population of the country.
He said government intervention in or regulation of the health sector is necessary.
Free market forces, he added, cannot be allowed to reign if this will result in inequity and lack of access to health services.
Health and health services, being public goods, must be distributed equitably to the whole population.
And it is the role of the government to ensure equitable distribution of health resources, the lawmaker stressed.
