House Deputy Speaker Ralph Recto on Friday said he is hoping the Senate would pass the counterpart bill of the proposed Department of Health (DOH) Specialty Centers Act so that President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. can sign it and highlight in his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July.
He said the bill seeks to help the sick and their families of the “financial pain” of going to Manila and other big cities just to get treatment.
“Let us build these specialty centers. So for those seeking treatment, all roads must not lead to Manila. And that the best pathways should not automatically lead to the doors of private hospitals,” he said.
Recto said the measure also seeks to effectively regionalize heart, lung, kidney and 13 other specialty centers and to address the lack of doctors by funding more medical students.
If enacted, the proposed bill will further create more “treat-train-teach” hospitals that would complement the “Doktor Para Sa Bayan” program, which will fund 3,600 scholars in 32 schools in 15 regions this year, Recto said.
The bill calls for the establishment by the DOH of National Specialty Centers, Advanced Comprehensive Specialty Centers, and Basic Comprehensive Specialty Centers in selected DOH hospitals in different regions.
The designated hospitals will focus on 17 specialties: cancer; cardiovascular; lung; renal and kidney transplant; brain and spine; trauma; burn; orthopedic and physical rehabilitation; infectious disease and tropical medicine; toxicology; mental health; geriatrics; neonatal; dermatology; ear, nose and throat; and ophthalmology.
The Quezon City-based Heart, Lung, Kidney Centers, automatically designated as National Specialty Centers, will provide the standard, training and technical assistance in the establishment of the specialty centers in the regions.
Recto said making specialty units part of existing hospitals is a “better, faster, cheaper” approach than regionalizing the Heart, Lung and Kidney Centers into standalone facilities.
The bill, Recto said, “is one of the Rx to resource anemia in the health system.”
“Nowhere is this lack more jarring than in the DOH-run medical centers in big urban centers. If their intake of patients looks like a congested artery, it is because they are swamped with medical refugees referred by hospitals which cannot treat them,” he added.
He said creating specialty centers, would relieve “catchment medical centers” of congestion, and patients of additional financial burden.
“For those from the provinces, the cost of seeking treatment in Manila, in the Heart or Lung Center, exponentially rises – the version of an elevated financial BP. Money that could have been spent solely for the patient’s treatment is eaten up by fare, board and lodging of caregivers,” he said.
And being far from families, Recto said “medical evacuees are denied the constant care of a revolving set of caregivers, whose presence aids in healing.”
Another “good side benefit” of a network of specialty centers is that it will create more “teach and train” facilities for medical students enrolled under the Doktor Para Sa Bayan Act,” Recto. (PNA)