(Continued from Feb. 1, 2019)
AS IT ACTUALLY happens, even the large health insurance coverage of the rich people would not be enough if they fall victim to major medical expenses.
In theory, it could be said that if only there is no graft and corruption in the Philippines, we would have enough money to fund our own version of UHC, perhaps patterned after the Canadian and the Cuban models.
As of now however, that would seem to be water under the bridge, because graft and corruption here may not disappear as fast as we want it, therefore socialized medicine may not appear here as fast as we want it to.
However, there is one way to actually realize the goal of universality, by way of playing a numbers game. Towards that goal, we could say that if universality is synonymous to accessibility, then all we have to do is provide more access to more people, something that could be done through telemedicine, for example. The other way to increase the numbers is to provide access to more people with minor medical needs.
Perhaps very few people have noticed it, but a charity ward inside a government hospital is an aberration, actually an oxymoron also at the very least. That is so because a government hospital is supposed to be a charity hospital in its entirety.
That is not simply a theory, because that is how it is supposed to be in the first place. On the other hand, as it is supposed to be, there is supposed to be a charity ward in every private hospital.
Well, I say that is only how it is supposed to be, because the requirement is for private hospitals to make sure that 10 percent of their patients are charity cases. How else could that be interpreted?
It could just be a play of words, but why not convince the private hospitals to put up charity wards. I do not know how and why it happened, but as of now, there are very few charity hospitals left standing. Perhaps we should really examine ourselves, and then try to bring back what ought to be. (iseneres@yahoo.com/PN)
