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Re-channel counter-insurgency budget for health

The latest issue related on health was the leakage scam on the nursing board examination that happened on June 11 to 12. A multi-million review center and the board of nursing allegedly perpetrated the leakage, which benefited the reviewees of this well known review center. As examinees found it unfair, they filed a case at the Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) to rectify the wrong and punish those involved in the scam.

But I am more interested with the doctors’ examinees who took the exam in the hope to go abroad and become nurses. I consider this policy of doctors’ plight to other countries a bigger scam. I urge that this be addressed as my worry is founded by reality that our professional doctors are leaving to serve as nurses in other countries. Who will render health services to our citizenry if our doctors leave the Philippines? This is the main issue here.

We are badly in need of doctors. In fact in the countryside, there are no doctors. But the government failed to address this health situation. It is more interested in the dollar remittances of migrant workers – as it is in reality the only life savior of our dying economy.

The lack of doctors is manifested by the fact that the ratio in the Philippines is 1 doctor to 28,493 Filipinos. This situation is aggravated by the doctor’s plight as nurses to other countries as 70% of our Filipino doctors are reportedly abroad.

We cannot blame them as they are among the lowest paid. The monthly entry level salary of a doctor in a government hospital is P12,546. This cannot cope with the rising prices of commodities and other social services. Salaries are nailed to the same level despite a wide clamor for an increase. How then can one survive with this situation?

The above situation is a reflection of our economy, complicated by misadministration by those in power. Social services are not their priority as manifested by the payment of foreign debt and the latest allocation of one billion pesos for counter-insurgency, which in fact will led to violations of rights. The health budget for a Filipino in one day is a mere thirty five centavos. Yes, thirty five centavos per Filipino per day. Yet GMA allocated one billion pesos for counter-insurgency. GMA must re-channel this to services particularly health. #

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