Experts, LGU execs back Go’s bills to boost health care system amid pandemic

Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go (Photo from his office)

MANILA, Philippines — During a Senate health committee hearing on Tuesday, May 26, the Department of Health and the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) expressed their support for bills seeking to strengthen the country’s health care system that were filed by Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, chair of the Committee on Health and Demography.

Some of the bills include measures seeking to improve the process of increasing the bed capacity of the government hospitals, address the lack of quarantine facilities, establish sub-national laboratories, and strengthen the country’s disease surveillance and epidemiologic investigation system, among others.

During the hearing, the ULAP president, Quirino Gov Dakila Carlo E. Cua, expressed agreement with the proposed measures, saying that ULAP fully supported the empowerment of the DOH to increase the bed capacity of hospitals nationwide.

Cua also expressed support for the call of Go and President Rodrigo Duterte to help overseas Filipino workers during the pandemic.

“We should help them. We are doing our best to accommodate and welcome home our new age heroes, our OFWs,” Cua said, speaking partly in Filipino.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III also stated his support for measures empowering the national and local governments in dealing with public health emergencies.

He added that he also supported measures that seek to complement the number and protect health professionals from occupational threats associated with their job.

Another executive who expressed support for the bills was Marinduque Gov. Presbitero Velasco Jr., who is the president of the League of Provinces of the Philippines.

Health experts backing the bills are members of the Association of Municipal Health Officers of the Philippines, the Philippine Hospital Association, Philippine Medical Association, Philippine Alliance of Patient Organization, and the National Privacy Commission, among others.

Among Go’s filed bills, Senate Bill No. 226, or the proposed DOH Hospital Bed Capacity and Service Capability Rationalization Act, aims to authorize the DOH to increase the bed capacity and service capability of its retained hospitals and to allow it to promulgate evaluation and approval guidelines.

During the hearing, Go lamented the poor hospital bed-to-population ratio of the country, saying that “general hospital beds to the population was one is to 1,142, exceeding the ideal ratio of one is to 1,000.”

He added that DOH hospitals were constrained by the lack of adequate staffing, and maintenance and operating resources to fully provide the quality of health care that their patients deserve.

Go also filed SB No. 1259, or the Mandatory Quarantine Facilities Act of 2020, which mandates the establishment of quarantine facilities in every region of the country.

According to Go, quarantine mechanisms had been a long-established public health strategy to prevent transmission and should be part of the standard precautions taken to prevent the spread of any infectious disease.

“Nakita naman po natin na ginagawa ng gobyerno ang lahat para rumesponde sa krisis. Nagtayo agad ng quarantine facilities sa iba’t ibang lugar gamit ang available infrastructure na meron na tayo,” Go said.

[We have seen what the government has been doing to respond to the crisis. It immediately set up quarantine facilities in various places using available structures that we already have.]

“Pero kung mayroon na tayong nakahandang pasilidad para sa ganitong mga krisis o sakuna, mas mabilis at mas mabisa nating mapoprotektahan ang kalusugan ng kapwa nating Pilipino. The proposed measures filed aim to address this need and establish quarantine facilities all throughout the country,” he added.

[But if we already have a ready facility for this kind of crisis or calamity, we can move faster and more effectively to protect the health of fellow Filipinos.]

Go also seeks to strengthen the country’s efforts in disease surveillance and epidemiologic investigation through SB No. 1528, which seeks to amend Republic Act No. 11332, or the Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act.

During the hearing, Go cited several key areas that needed amendments, including those addressing the lack of sub-national laboratories; mandating the establishment of hotlines where the public can report a public health concern; and mandating the assistance of the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the conduct of contact tracing, among others.

Meanwhile, Duque admitted that the Philippines’ testing capacity during the coronavirus pandemic was the “number one weakness” in the country’s health system.

According to the health chief, there is a need to increase the number of sub-national laboratories to ramp up the country’s testing capacity.

Ending the hearing, Go acknowledged the need to improve the country’s capacity in addressing pandemics like COVID-19.

‘We hope that the measures we have discussed today will address some of our weaknesses and gaps in handling public health emergencies,” Go said.

“Let the pandemic be a lesson to all of us and use this experience to improve our health system,” he added.

/atm