Half of Filipinos can't access primary healthcare facilities within 30 mins. -DOH

Half of the Philippine population cannot access primary healthcare facilities in the country within 30 minutes, the Department of Health (DOH) said Thursday.

At a Senate hearing, DOH Undersecretary Dr. Lilibeth David presented the Philippine Health Facility Development Plan for 2020 to 2040.

“For our primary care facilities po, we’ve mapped out 2,593 approximately, for private facilities, it’s 1,500 and we see that 50 percent of our population still do not have access in to a primary care facility within 30 minutes,” David said in her presentation.

Primary care facilities refer to rural health units and health centers.

These gaps are usually in the Bicol Region, MIMAROPA, and the Bangsamaro Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

“‘Our goal is all of our population will have access to a primary care facility within 30 minutes,” David said, citing the ideal situation based on the Universal Health Care (UHC) Law.

David also said these primary care units are key facilities in the implementation of the UHC as the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) will roll out primary care benefits that seek to unload all higher level hospitals.

Bed density

The DOH official also reported that the bed density in the country is at 1.2 beds per 1,000 population.

This is comparable to countries in Sub-Saharan, Africa, she said.

“If we really hope to become upper-middle country, that target that we want to have is at least 4 beds per 1,000,” David said.

The Senate health and demography committee jointly with the Committees on Public Works, Finance, and Ways and Means conducted a hearing on 10 bills related to health infrastructures in the country.