More poor patients dying in government hospitals, health workers charge

Government health workers urged President Arroyo and Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Emilia Boncodin yesterday to visit government hospitals to personally see the "miserable" conditions of poor patients who are dying because of lack of medicines and free medical services.

Health workers said hundreds of patients are dying in government hospitals because of the DBM’s failure to release funds allocated to them and the alleged "anti-poor" revenue enhancement program (REP) being implemented by the Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Manuel Dayrit at the government hospitals.

"Government’s refusal to make health a priority is breeding a ‘dying and sickly republic’ instead of the ‘strong republic’ President Arroyo vowed to build in her State of the Nation Address last July," Emma Manuel, president of the Alliance of Health Workers (AHW), said.

Manuel said the DBM had continuously failed to release the budget allocated to the government hospitals preventing from buying essential medicines and medical equipment needed to properly extend treatment to the patients who come to them for help.

The AHW said that the budget being allocated to the DOH and consequently the DOH-operated hospitals annually was already not enough as it is. The failure of the DBM to release the funds was exacerbating the situation of health workers, AHW charged.

Manuel said that health workers at government hospitals such as the San Lazaro Hospital, Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center, Tondo Medical Center, the National Center for Mental Health and others, oppose the REP.

It was learned that the DOH started to implement the REP — a policy wherein government hospitals are mandated to impose fees for medical services and medicines previously offered by the government for free — starting August 2001.

The DOH wants the REP implemented for the government hospitals to earn income that they can use for their operations.

The AHW pointed out that almost all the patients who come to the said government hospitals are poor and could not pay the fees being charged under the DOH’s REP.

A result of the REP and the DBM failure to release the funds of the government hospitals, the AHW said, was the climbing mortality rate in these hospitals.

Remy Malto, president of the San Lazaro Hospital Employees Union — an AHW member-union — and an attendant at the said hospital, said that deaths among their patients each day was increasing this year, with several consecutive days posting five or more deaths.

At the Tondo Medical Center (TMC), another DOH-operated hospital catering to the poor population of Metro Manila, particularly those from Tondo and neighboring Malabon, Navotas, Caloocan and Valenzuela, AHW members said they were seeing record highs in the number of deaths in their nine wards, excluding the emergency ward.

The AHW charged that the REP was a prelude to the eventual corporatization of the government hospitals that was being pushed by Dayrit.

Dayrit could not reached for comment since he was in Pampanga for a seminar with DOH officials.

In an earlier interview, Dayrit cast doubts on the conclusion being made by the health workers that the increasing number of deaths at government hospitals was directly caused by the REP.