Proposed health budget for 2012, ‘inadequate, with wrong priorities’

Proposed health budget for 2012, ‘inadequate, with wrong priorities’

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
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – Health workers from public hospitals trooped this week to the budget hearing in Congress, holding a picket at the gates of the House of Representatives to drum up their calls for the government to reverse its “trend of abdicating on health service provision.” As a start, the health workers said, the government should increase the health budget next year to at least P90-billion ($2.09 billion).

“Health is a human right,” the members of Health Alliance for Democracy (HEAD), Alliance of Health Workers, women’s group Gabriela, community organizations and other concerned health advocates who formed the Coalition for Health Budget Increase, repeatedly said in their picket in front of the House of Representatives.

For the members of the new coalition, it would not do to transform health care and services as commodities which, if you cannot pay, you cannot avail of. They argued that if the government truly recognizes health as a right, it would not allow health services to be privatized. The health groups demanded an increase in the budget for operating expenses of public hospitals and government health centers, for disease prevention and for health workers and professionals, among others.

“The country’s patients and health have been suffering a lot already, but the Aquino government is prioritizing the acquisition of battle ships and killing machines,” said Sean Vilchez, deputy secretary-general of HEAD.

Government hospitals as enterprises
In his presentation introducing the health department’s proposed budget for next year, Health Secretary Enrique T. Ona also pointed to the worsening trend in Filipinos’ total health expenditures: the large and increasing share of “out-of-pocket” spending or the spending on health care that the people themselves shelled out at the point of service. In 2007, the latest year for which the government has data, the out-of-pocket spending comprised more than half of the total, dwarfing the share of the government and social insurance.

To address this problem, the health workers in public and specialty hospitals retained by the health department have been demanding for increased budgets. These, they said, would prevent public hospitals from charging its patients especially the poor..... MORE

Source:  Bulatlat.com

URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2011/08/16/sc-decision-%e2%80%98same-monster-as-1989-2010-referendum%e2%80%99%e2%80%93-farmers%e2%80%99-group/