Learning from a difficult experience

After assisting my caretaker to get serious medical attention in a government hospital, I discovered that the Philippine public health system works. It is complicated, but it works.

We have the best physicians, surgeons and hospital managers in public hospitals. Those who start out as interns, even nurses, all go through a grueling load of non-stop work, exposure and training with which there is no way to go but up in terms of know-how and skills. During the early stage of assisting “Narding” who required a very complicated Whipple procedure, I learned that the three hospitals in Lipa and Batangas City he was brought to did not have the specialist required. In terms of costs and charges, they paid P150,000 for two CT-scans and a few days’ stay at a private hospital in Lipa, Batangas.

We eventually brought him to the Rizal Medical Center in Pasig where all the needed specialists, surgeon and experts were available. The five-week/ 38-day stay inclusive of all laboratories, major surgery, ICU isolation of about a week and professional fees cost approximately P700,000. In a private hospital, that bill would have been close to P3M.

The only reason public hospitals have a bad reputation is because they are so overcrowded as we have many sick and unhealthy Filipinos. We seriously need to do something about preventive care and promoting a healthy lifestyle. We also don’t have enough public hospitals relative to existing population, while our misguided religiosity opposes population and birth control.

Then there are also no expansion plans designed in advance to cope with a growing ageing population and commercial development of every town or city leading to increases in residents. The “newest” public hospital in Lipa City is the 20-year-old Ospital ng Lipa under the LGU and it has since deteriorated in terms of equipment maintenance, upgrades and management.

Last but not least, funding for such facilities is politically tied to the priorities of elected officials who can afford and patronize well-furnished private hospitals while they cut budgets of the DOH, impede infrastructure development and capacity enhancements of public hospitals. Governors or mayors even get to