UniTeam vows to reorganize health care system, cites lessons learned from pandemic
PRESIDENTIAL aspirant Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. on Thursday vowed to reorganize the country’s health care system to ensure that the dysfunctions that the country experienced during the pandemic will not be repeated in the future.
“After we cope with this (pandemic), let us revisit the system. Let us use our experience to fix it so that when another medical issue arises in the future we will be ready,” Bongbong said during an interview with columnist and vlogger RJ Nieto.
Asked about the predicaments that the frontliners encountered during the outbreak, Bongbong said he was saddened when he saw the medical practitioners walk out and organized a rally “because their Special Risk Allowance was not given to them.”
“Sabi ko hindi dapat umabot sa ganun, huwag natin pabayaang umabot sa ganyang klaseng sitwasyon. If you ask me what are my plans if elected, the first thing we have to fix is the healthcare system because we saw what was lacking during the pandemic, and among those were the benefits of our nurses,” Bongbong said.
He said the government did what it can to alleviate the situation, but it can only do so much “because nobody saw it coming.”
“Nayanig ang lahat dahil sa pandemya. There were a lot of problems especially in terms of funding. We always try to find ways to generate funds, but let’s hope that those were used properly,” Bongbong said.
“The transfer of the funds from different agencies, from different departments, those that were transferred to the Department of Budget and Management, the problems that came out in Philhealth, in DOH, those things should have been avoided. And this will happen again if we don’t fix the system,” Bongbong added.
He continued that aside from budget, the focus should also be on “an organizational structure” that would be ready to respond to any contingencies.
“We have to rationalize, if you think about it, IATF is an ad hoc organization that was just put together somehow in a hurry to try to respond to Covid. Now it seems that we will overcome this, and when we do, let us organize and put up a structure that will be ready to respond,” he explained.
Bongbong pointed out that the frontliners should have strong support from the government, “not only financially but also morally so that they will understand that we appreciate and recognize their work.”
