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By MARYA SALAMAT
“Every life is valuable,” Remy Maltu, union president of the San Lazaro Hospital, said, adding that whether less or more are becoming afflicted today by dengue, the patients still need medical services which public hospitals are becoming more and more constrained to provide with cuts in their budgets.
Sidebar: Community health workers criticize government’s inadequate response to dengue
By MARYA SALAMAT
In a study of the proposed 2012 health budget conducted by the Coalition for Health Budget Increase (CHBI), it found out that the increases in the health budget only “define the Aquino Health Agenda of privatization and commercialization of public health care which will further jeopardize the health of the people.”
By MARYA SALAMAT
Despite the promises of devolution, funding for health services is unable to keep up with local needs.
Sidebar: Not enough doctors, and nurses, in
Sidebar: Where do the sick go?
SECOND PART: LGUs try enterprise to cure shortage in health funding
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
During the August 9 budget hearing of the DOH, Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño exposed the practice of the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC) of asking indigent patients to pawn personal items like mobile phones and watches in exchange for releasing patients.
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
“The government should have given us permanent jobs instead of this (conditional cash transfer). Money is not permanent, we lose it in a day, unlike when we have a permanent job, we would somehow have permanent resources to spend for our needs,” – Angie Lorenzo, beneficiary
By MARYA SALAMAT
“We are calling on the Aquino government to increase the budget of all public hospitals, not just of the Philippine Heart Center. If high costs of medical treatment even in government hospitals become prevalent, more patients will die without being seen or treated by doctors,” said Bonifacio Carmona Jr., PHC Employees Association Congress speaker and AHW-NCR Representative.
By MARYA SALAMAT
“You go to a public hospital emergency room to have your wound cleaned, you have to first buy some cotton, wound antiseptic, and dressings, before you can be treated,” said Joel Bitanga, 40, an X-ray technician in San Lazaro Hospital.
Sidebar: Health workers blame Aquino’s PPPs for further crippling the Philippine Orthopedic Center
By MARYA SALAMAT
Years of slashed budgets have resulted in the severely reduced servicing of indigent patients, the reduced benefits of the hospital employees, and, as health workers fear, the risk of final or formal privatization of the Philippine Heart Center.
By ANNE MARXZE D.UMIL
“The RH bill has many positive provisions that may be put to waste if the population control menace continues to overshadow the bill’s essence. As we work to strengthen the public and fellow legislators’ appreciation of such good provisions, we shall nonetheless refuse to make the RH bill a platform for population control.
By MARYA SALAMAT
A 2008 study of the Consumers Action for Empowerment and the Health Action Information Network concluded that a single course of antibiotics amounts to three days’ worth of wages; not much has improved since then.
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
Airish has meningocele, meaning she has a growth next to her small head that is much bigger in circumference. If only her mother knew that she had to take a P6.00 tablet of folic acid or folate per day during her pregnancy, Airish could have been spared from having meningocele.
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
“We urge the Catholic community to actively participate in crafting a national policy on women’s reproductive health on the framework that full access to healthcare services is a universally recognized right and that population control is never to blame for and should not be a panacea to the country’s worsening poverty.” Gabriela Women's Party Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan.
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