‘DOH budget cut unhealthy’

Health workers on Sunday criticized the government for proposing a budget that fails to reflect the objective of giving priority to health-related programs and to solve the problems brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2021 proposed spending plan for the Department of Health (DOH) is P127.28 billion, P27 billion more than the 2020 approved budget of P100.559 billion, The Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) said.

But this figure is only 2.82 percent of the proposed 2021 national budget and only 0.6 percent of gross domestic product, the group said.

This proposed DOH budget is akin to allotting P3.16 health budget per Filipino per day, it said.

The AHW also said the DOH budget was insufficient to curb the COVID-19 pandemic and would not meet the health needs of the people being driven by the crisis.

It also slammed the government for reducing the maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) for public hospitals and for not including a capital outlay for free health services.

“Worst of all, PhilHealth (the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.) which is plagued by corruption, has been given huge funds that will continue to be milked by corrupt government officials. The P71.3 billion DOH subsidy to PhilHealth should be realigned to the 66 DOH hospitals across the country for free and direct health services to patients,” the AHW said.

A nurses' group on Saturday said the proposed 2021 national health budget is an "uncaring" budget, with only a small percentage supposedly allotted for the health of citizens.

“The proposed 2021 national health budget is an uncaring budget for a nation suffering from hunger, devastating economic and health effects of a pandemic that continuously wreaks havoc on both the majority poor as well as the health care workers in the frontline,” said the Filipino Nurses United (FNU) in a statement.

“The allotment of 2 percent for health in the national budget reflects the severe callousness on our people’s health and safety, and survival needs while abandoning the distress call of health workers at this time of uncontained pandemic while intending to give the huge budget chunk to firearms, intelligence, roads and infrastructure,” the FNU said.

“It is unfathomable that the proposed 2021 budget would not gear to increase health capacity standards and worst has slashed operational expenses of public hospitals including budget for public health,” the FNU added.

The 2021 budget allotted for health falls short of addressing many health and nursing problems such as chronic understaffing in national and local government hospitals as well as public health.

For decades, augmentation of the workforce is the usual excuse for hiring casuals, contractuals, job order, contract of service and nurse deployment program nurses.

However, nursing jobs in both hospitals and public health are vital and essential, not piecemeal, or temporary nature of work as the government defines it, they said.

Therefore no nurse deserves to be JO, COS or contractual for more than a year, much less decades. Consequently, creation of regular job positions with appropriate and adequate budget is urgent and mandatory, the nurses said.

Meanwhile, Senate finance committee chairman Senator Juan Edgardo Angara said he hopes his fellow senators will be more discerning during their deliberations on the proposed DOH budget next year due to problems hounding PhilHealth and the department itself.

He specifically cited the poor leadership of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, who also sits as ex-officio chairperson of PhilHealth, with a proposed budget of P71.5 billion in 2021.

Duque and other PhilHealth officials are facing various criminal and administrative charges over fresh corruption issuds involving the interim reimbursements mechanism (IRM), an allegedly overpriced information technology project and doctored financial statements.

In an interview over radio dzBB Sunday, Angara said the ability of Duque to meet the demands of the senators in terms of his performance as Health chief as well as accountability on issues hounding the agency will be a factor on how much the Senate will allocate for the DOH next year.

He also told the interview that at least 14 senators had signed a resolution seeking Duque's resignation for "failure of leadership, negligence, lack of foresight, and inefficiency in the performance of his mandate" amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Angara said the senators have been asking for many things from the DOH secretary in terms of deliverables and accountability.

Still, Angara said the Senate will not sacrifice the budget for health programs that the public needs the most at this time just because of Duque.

“You’re talking about budget for hospitals, budget for medicine, and from there- we should be professional in looking at it despite our reservations regarding the leadership," he said.

Angara noted that the DOH traditionally does not completely use up the budget allocated for it, and its low disbursement rate has always been questioned during the deliberations on the department's annual budget.

Also on Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon pushed for funding of a social amelioration program in the 2021 national budget to ease the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Filipinos and to prevent millions from slipping back into poverty.

“We must provide funding for SAP in the 2021 national budget to combat the worsening poverty. There are items in the budget that we can tap to provide the much-needed cash subsidies to the poor,” he said.

The Senate leader said he will ask the Senate committee on finance to look for excess funds in the budget that can be tapped to provide for SAP.

But Senator Joel Villanueva said the government has programs under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and other government agencies intended to provide assistance to families in need.

“We needed SAP this year because we had an emergency situation. We should have a better handle of the economic and social situation next year,” he said.

“We will examine that during the budgeting process and ensure that we allocate sufficient funds to provide assistance to those in need,” he added.

Senator Christopher Go said that enhancing public health care must be prioritized in 2021 budget to ensure sustainability of public services amid the pandemic.

He stressed the need to invest in the country's health sector.

During the Development Budget Coordinating Council briefing, Go said that "perennial gaps in the system have been exposed especially in the health sector" by the crisis that must be addressed in the 2021 national budget.

"The coronavirus disease has considerably put us a step back, but as we withstand this crisis, we must rebuild our lives. As mentioned in the President’s budget message, we need to reset, rebound, and recover," Go said.

Go emphasized that the budget for 2021 must respond not only to the country's goal to overcome the pandemic, but also to be more prepared for, and more responsive to any other health crisis that may come the country's way.

During the deliberations, Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado said the budget allotted for procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) is about P2.6 billion. The initial allocation for a vaccine is around PhP2.5 billion to immunize about 3.8 million poor Filipinos.

"There’s also another P10 billion at the moment provided under Bayanihan 2 for COVID 19 medication and vaccine under the standby fund of Bayanihan 2 and an additional P1.3 billion is appropriated under the 2021 NEP or the procurement of RTCPR cartridges to be used for fast accurate testing of COVID-19," Avisado added.