Dahil paubos na rin ang pondo ng ospital ng gobyerno bawal na ang magkasakit? : QC IMC

The government’s continuing budgetary cuts have virtually erased accessible public health care in the country and driven many to despair and beggary just to pay for hospital bills.

Thus stated party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna as he asked the House of Representatives to address the deteriorating state of public health care services by appropriating more money for it.

As he addressed his colleagues during his privilege speech delivered Tuesday night, Ocampo narrated heart-breaking stories of indigent patients in government funded hospitals dying because they are being refused treatment for failing to cough out money.

“The rising collection of fees year after year from even indigent patients at charity wards has become a virtual death sentence for the poor,” Ocampo said in his speech before the plenary session.

“If before medical service was freely available for indigents, today every medical service and even medical supplies have corresponding fees,” he said. ”At the Lung Center of the Philippines, for instance, the patients are even being asked to pay P30 for their use of electricity and lights--on top of other miscellaneous fees.”

Ocampo noted that these are serious indicators of the problem of lack of funds for government hospitals which stems from the declining health budget. “For the past eight years, the health budget has steadily declined by about 40 percent,” he noted.

In 1998, the national health budget was pegged at P13.06 billion. Despite the inflation factor, It has since been whittled down to a measly P10.04 billion in 2004. The figure could not represent even 1 percent of the Gross National Product considering the World Health Organization’s recommendation that a minimum of 5% of a nation’s earnings must be allotted to the health sector.

Ocampo cited some documented cases compiled by the Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) which counts in its roster the labor unions of the country’s biggest government hospitals. He narrated a case at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute where a patient who was too poor to pay for the dialysis suffered complications. ”Gasping for breath, she and her family pleaded with the staff to give her oxygen, but this was ignored. Needless to say, the patient died,” he said.

He also cited the story of Wyana Figueroa, 26, who was able to witness how a staff in a government hospital took out the life support system attached to a 19-year old mother who delivered a baby and lost a lot of blood. ”The family of the girl pleaded with the staff, but to no avail. They were even asked to pay for the bed sheet and linens soaked by the patient’s blood,” Ocampo narrated.

“The budget cuts on public health services have virtually institutionalized the commercialization of health care in government hospitals,” he explained. ”Under the guise of fiscal autonomy, government hospitals are now required to come up with their own income-generating projects–directly asking the poor patients to pay all sort of fees for every reason hospital administrators can think of.”

“This deplorable situation has to be taken into consideration as we in Congress begin to tackle the General Appropriations Act of 2005,” stressed Ocampo. “The right of the people to health care is enshrined in the Constitution. Therefore, we, who hold the power of the purse, have the duty to ensure that the proper amount for health care be given to address the problem.” #