Medical Tourism to Lay Off Workers in 5 Public Hospitals

Is tourism more important than job security for the Macapagal-Arroyo administration? Enlightened workers of public hospitals think so.

By PHILIP PARAAN
Bulatlat

NO TO INTEGRATION: Doctors and other health workers rally in front of the Philippine Heart Center in protest against the integration of government hospitals for medical tourism. The Philippine Heart Center is one of the government hospitals targeted for integration. PHOTO COURTESY OF COUNCIL FOR HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT

The Macapagal-Arroyo administration is currently promoting medical tourism to have an “effective and efficient delivery of comprehensive and globally competitive, quality specialized health care.” Public hospital workers, however, argue that medical tourism will eventually result in their retrenchment. As a step toward promoting medical tourism in the country, House Bill (HB) No. 5741 seeks to integrate the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI), Philippine Heart Center (PHC), Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP), Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC) and East Avenue Medical Center (EAMC). The bill proposes the creation of the Philippine Center for Specialized Health Care (PCSHC).

A similar proposal, Senate Bill (SB) No. 1118, was also filed in the Senate.

The bills support the administration’s Medical Tourism Program which has reportedly raised $125 million in 2005.

Emma Manuel of the Alliance for Health Workers (AHW) said that health workers will continue to call for the junking of the two bills. For them, optimization, rationalization and integration are now the key concepts being introduced by the Macapagal-Arroyo administration to penetrate the medical tourism market.

Aside from the security of tenure of hundreds of hospital workers, HB 5741 and SB 1118 also threaten the indigent patients’ access to health care from these public hospitals.

With the integration, the structure and operation of the five public hospitals will be changed. There will be a unified management from the Board of Directors to the rank-and-file. Such major adjustments will also reduce the specialty hospitals (Cardiology, Pulmonary Medicine, Maternal and Child Care) to mere departments of one mega-hospital.

Services like pharmacy and dietary, as well as other segments of hospital operations, will also be unified. Given the prohibition against duplication of offices, functions and staffing within government agencies as stated in Executive Order No. 366, streamlining is not far from happening, according to the AHW.

Maneuvers to promote medical tourism

Rep. Emilio Macias II (Negros Occidental) filed the bill which is now awaiting approval at the committee level. The bill was recently recommended for further study and a technical working group was formed by the proponents under Rep. Antonio Yap.

However¸ the Department of Health (DoH), through its Office for Special Concerns, continues to call for its passage. At the NKTI, the DoH has set up an office to spearhead the development of the PCSHC. Around P1 million ($20,124.77, based on an exchange rate of P49.69 per U.S. dollar) was reportedly taken from the PHC to fund this office.

Based on the proposal, the integration will be supervised by a corporate board whose members are the present directors of the five public hospitals; members of the Committee on Health of both the Senate and the House of Representatives; and three from the private sector to be appointed by President. The private sector representatives could come from the Philippine Medical Association and the Philippine Hospital Association.

Resistance

Sources reveal that the members of the board of directors of the five affected public hospitals (with the exception of an NKTI board member) are opposed to the planned integration. For them, there is no need for full integration since there is nothing wrong with the present operation of the five public hospitals.

In fact, the five public hospitals already have an inter-hospital referral system. They can also improve their coordination not through integration but through a memorandum of agreement.

In 2005, Lung Center Employees Association protested the conversion of the LCP into a Women’s Medical Center with the integration of the Fabella Medical Center’s maternal and child care. Then Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit wrote to the LCP employees to deny such a plan. However, a building right behind the LCP is nearing completion, and this is believed to be for the establishment of the Women’s Medical Center.

Travel for health

Elmer Collong, president of the Philippine Heart Center Employees Association, said that the planned integration of five public hospitals is meant to cut costs for health services and pave the way for a profit-oriented health care. Generally, these public hospitals are reducing allocation for indigent services and the screening for indigent patients has become stricter.

PHC only has 20 percent of total patients classified as indigent. LCP still has the highest proportion of indigent patients at 60 percent.

Health workers stressed that Macapagal-Arroyo’s “travel for health” invitation to foreigners is nothing but a way to earn more revenues. In addition, the administration’s claim of a high income potential of medical tourism is only meant to encourage more foreign investors in the health sector.

Indeed, moves to privatize health care and restructure public hospitals will never be for the benefit of the majority of the people. Such moves are actually being done at their expense. Bulatlat

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