Prevention is better than cure, says DoH

THE Department of Health (DoH) is moving toward people-centered primary care from a curative care-focused system, according to a medical expert.��

“Universal health care (UHC) is founded in primary care, which addresses more than 80% of people’s common health needs throughout their lives,” said Christian Edward L. Nuevo, chief health program officer of the DoH Disease Prevention and Control Bureau, at a , an innovation-sharing platform. “UHC is all about the environments individuals are situated in.”������

People-centered primary care, Mr. Nuevo told the webinar, is defined as the matching of every Filipino family to a primary care provider. The primary care provider determines if family members need to receive services in a hospital, or if they can be helped at the primary care level.��

��, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), covers an individual’s physical, mental and social well-being. In addition, it is “a whole-of-society approach that includes health promotion, disease prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care.”��

Added Mr. Nuevo: “Why primary care?… It is fair and equitable, and provides people with access to essential health services in their communities.”��

According to the WHO, — such as the circumstances in which people are born, grow up, live, work, and age, and the systems put in place to deal with illness — account for between 30–55% of health outcomes, as shown by numerous studies.��

Mr. Nuevo enumerated six enablers for people-centered primary care: improving health literacy; defragmenting the local health system; expanding primary care facilities; strengthening the competencies of primary care workers; standardizing who does what; aligning incentives, benefits, and financing; and ensuring the interoperability of data within networks.������

FINANCING MECHANISM
It is impossible to finance UHC through the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), according to Dr. Ernesto O. Domingo, a national scientist of the Philippines, liver cancer specialist, and professor emeritus at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine.����

“It must be based on tax money, and ,” Dr. Domingo said at the Liveable Cities Lab event. “The money will come from taxes [such as the] sin tax, be incorporated into a global fund, and entrusted to [local governments] for them to budget in the coming year.”����

Although has declined from 2014 to 2020, that household out-of-pocket payments amounted to P379.7 billion, or 47.9% of the country’s current health expenditure.������

Dr. Domingo said an efficient system will result in considerable savings, pointing out that an executive checkup worth P100,000 is not necessarily better than one worth P10,000.����

“If the healthcare provider is careful and knows what he is doing, then he doesn’t have to have so many examinations to diagnose a disease… Why order a chest X-ray for someone who has the sniffles?” he added in the vernacular.������

Tightening the screws by requiring requests that have to be justified, Dr. Domingo said, will generate a lot of savings in the healthcare system.����

, was signed into law by President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Feb. 20, 2019. , and guarantees equitable access to affordable and quality health services. — Patricia B. Mirasol