On Healthcare

Words and Photo by Juan Agustin D. Coruña IV, MD

There are flukes in time when at least one patient expires each day in the hospital. Such a trend may escalate and go on for weeks. On better days, there are shifts with a continuous streak of successful resuscitation; most of the time, both situations are evenly shuffled. Regardless of the certainty of death, or the temporary escape from it, patients present with ailments ranging from simple discomfort to more severe suffering, often at a cost they cannot afford.

In the emergency room, victims of car accidents, recipients of gunshot or stab wounds, sufferers of work-related trauma, or those having an exacerbation of a co-morbid condition, arrive and are dealt with prompt survey. Some of them are managed, consequently stabilize, and are eventually sent home, while some of them pass away. For those who make it, possession of a ready financial resource often expedites treatment and augments survival. For those that do not, the great loss of life is a burden passed on to the next of kin and further aggravated by non-release of the body from the morgue due to the family’s inability to compensate the hospital for its efforts. This introduces the cinematic presentation of poverty as an obstacle to proper and equal access to healthcare. How unfortunate are the poorest of the poor, they say, for they just get sick and die.

But another facet of healthcare reality often dismissed is that afflicting the affluent. In cases of malignancy and lifestyle-related sickness, they are those who are seen dramatically fighting for their lives in the characteristic of it being chronic; with their money draining away from incurred health expenses. There seems to be an invisible script being said, that one has this disease, and it cannot be cured, but it can be managed. Its delivery appears to be a death sentence in the making, bestowed ever so subtly and carried out slowly with direction. The patient is offered a plan of action to live longer and comfortably, when in fact he knows of a definite prognosis.

When one gets sick, he is unable to work, and without work, he has no money to feed and sustain himself, more so pay for good health that has been denied of him. Applicable to majority of the mighty 90 million citizens of the Philippines, having no money translates to denied access to drugs, laboratory, hospital, and doctors. There are policies addressing such problems, but what is miserable is that they fail to grasp the entirety of the archipelago, especially to those classified as needy at the most distant portion of geography. The argument presented most often and very easily leads to the conclusion that having more money will straightforwardly resolve the problem. This is wrong.

The resolution is not solely about the rich helping the poor, or the health sector being gifted with monetary treasure. Instead, it is on focusing on preventive medicine, thinking through prioritizing schemes and adhering to them with admirable implementation. The present state of healthcare leans on the truth that even the rich are getting poorer. Therefore they are not the prime agents for change. This milieu affords most citizens to sense such, being sensitive to the issue. The novel notion now presented is that instead of the rich helping the poor as a framework for health policies, the well, either rich or poor, helping the sick is a more effective protocol; it respects the age-old concepts and adds vigor to them without losing the original value of having good health for all.

Well individuals from higher strata may find fulfillment sharing their wealth, investing on the human spirit. Their recent engagement in philanthropy has fueled a well-publicized countercurrent against the definitive onslaught of sick patients. Effective strategies have involved aggressive information dissemination about proper health practices, disease symptoms, vaccination, hotline availability, and proven alternative therapies through advertisements in print and on air, including upgrading of facilities, and establishing new satellite centers with emphasis in training personnel.

Well individuals from low-income populations should be tapped to advocate proper health practices and education, directly mobilizing their respective localities. Considering their participation as the workforce is a vital resource, priceless and indispensable. They are allotted sweat and toil in their labor, hours of dedicated volunteering with modest recompense. Their great number and combined gratefulness in being lifted to a well community are adherent to a unified and altruistic tropism for growth.

The vicious cycle of ill citizens getting poorer or the financially challenged getting sick is impeded this way. It is eventually noticed that the careful overhaul wanted relies on generous patrons uniform in their desire to extend themselves, reciprocating districts with the appropriate level of instruction, reliable infrastructure, maintained equipment, and a consistent system of respected legislation. Working harmoniously, they envelope an aid to the ailing coming from everyone who is healthy, rich and poor, correcting the old myth.

This shared welfare of social responsibility is not an easy feat, but a better Philippines should look into such.