Instrument of economic growth

Title

Language

English

Source

The Republic (2) 31 March 1973

Year

1973

Subject

Family planning -- Philippines

Family planning -- Social aspects -- Philippines

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

oAt ^Home Medicare: a boon for the needy and the low-wage earner The Medicare way Hospitalization in the Philippines had for so long been an expensive af fair that it became quite difficult to tell which people dreaded more — the onset of a disease or the prospect of seeing a pile of hospital bills. It used to be said, in fact, that only the rich could afford the luxury of getting sick. The advent of Medicare may well hasten a revision of that saying to include the needy and the low-wage earner. Low-income people, who almost al ways ended up in the charity wards of government and private hospitals when they got sick, can now go to any accredited hospital without having to waiy how to settle the bills later ?n. Adequate medical attention is assured them by a new government institu tion — the Medical Care Commission, or Medicare for short. When the commission started operations last year and began collect ing monthly fees from government and private employes, many greeted it with skepticism. Calling it an unneces sary, additional burden on the low-in come group, some people went so far as to urge the now defuqct Congress to repeal the law (Republic Act 1611) creating Medicare. This skepticism has since been re placed by the gratitude of some 65,000 who availed themselves of free medical services last year. The number is expected to increase several times over this year with the expansion of Medicare coverage and as more and more people become aware of its benefits. This concept of free medical service differs from that of the usual relief services in which the recipient gets some form of aid for nothing. More than once, the latter has been blamed for fostering an attitude of depend ence, of mendicancy even. By con trast, Medicare involves, if not hinges on, the participation of a responsible citizenry who, after all, provide the vital ingredient in the building up of a dynamic and progressive society. Contributions are minimal and based on each one’s earning capacity, but because of the pooling of resour ces, each contribution goes a long way in assuring medical attention for every ailing wage earner or his dependents. For a contribution of as low as P0.30 (less than the price of a pack of cigarets) a month, beneficiaries receive Pl 2 each daily for room and board in the hospital of their choice. They are also entitled to a maximum of P540 for 45 days’ hospitalization a year, P150 for medicine, laboratory exam ination and operating room fee (if sur gery is required), a surgical fee of P50 for a minor operation, Pl 50 for a medium operation, P350 for a major surgery and P100 for physicians’ fees (at P5 a day if the doctor is a general practitioner and P10 a day for a spe cialist). Except for the 45-day maxi mum limit on confinement a year, all other benefits may be availed of again within the year if the person treated later seeks confinement for a different ailment. Only recently, Medicare extended its services not only to the some 4 mil lion members of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and the Social Security System (SSS) but also to their dependents. The only condition is that confinement will not exceed the 45-day limit allotted to each family. Plans are to expand these services t^o other areas, including resident aliens with a minimum contribution of P0.50 a month and a maximum P5 a month, depending upon their annual income. Their contributions, which will “be handled by a proposed community mutual health fund, will be matched either in cash or their equivalent in terms of services by the national gov ernment. The GSIS and SSS members cur rently covered by Medicare contribute a minimum of P0.30 a month and a maximum of P3.75 applied on a grad uated scale based on annual income. But regardless of how much one contributes to the Medicare fund, he will get the same services and benefits as those who pay more. , Eventually, Medicare hopes to cover even those who are not mem bers of the GSIS or SSS. Dr. Pacifico Marcos, the 54-year-old chairman of the commission, has re vealed plans for the construction in the next two years of 81 hospitals with 10-15 bed capacities throughout the country. These hospitals, he said will serve as community health and hospital centers to serve people of ex treme poverty who cannot contribute to the community health fund. The centers will be operated jointly by Medicare, which will provide the equipment and personnel, the Depart ment of Health which will provide pfrt of the personnel and medicine, and the community which will x* shoulder the operational expenses, in cluding the salaries of additional per sonnel not paid by Medicare. In addition, Medicare has devised a system to cope with the shortage of doctors in the rural areas. Today more than 8,000 doctors, or 65 percent of the membership of the Philippine Medical Association, gre concentrated in the greater Manila area and other urban areas while only 35 percent are in the rural areas were 70 percent of the 38 million Filipinos reside. To encourage doctors to go to re mote areas, Medicare is working on a plan to set up a scholarship system funded by private individuals or foun dations with priorities, initially, to be given to medical students who stop ped schooling because of lack of fin ancial support. Later, a nationwide scholarship system will be formed to encourage bright and promising stu dents in the rural areas to take up the medical profession. Awardees shall be entitled to free tuition and other school expenses, in cluding a monthly allowance of P200 each, to be shouldered by their respec tive sponsors through Medicare. Th*"’ shall be so supported up to the met al board examination. All that will L. expected from the scholars in return is for them “to serve in the rural com munity assigned to them following their full accreditation as physicians for two years at reasonable salaries.” Dr. Marcos said Medicare would also encourage doctor-less communi ties to set up a system of pi* ” medical, scholarships either throv local organizations or through request for the Medicare to find sponsors. Reviewing Medicare’s activities last year, Dr. Marcos said “1972 was a tur bulent year for us due to the fact that the Medicare program was initially im plemented during that time ami powerful forces trying to blunt it in z ineffectivity.” But he said, “in spite of the barriers put on its way, the Medi care commission faithfully and dili gently did its duty.” He added that “changing the peoples’ attitude (toward Medicare) was our greatest feat.” FAMILY PLANNING Instrument of economic growth A Filipino is bom every thirty seconds. This is the urgent signal being made by an electronic clock at the Rizal Park to dramatize the country’s rapid population growth of 3.5 per cent annually. At 4:43 p.m. on March 3, a few days after its installation, the clock ticked a total of 40,082,156 Fi lipinos, an eerie reminder to the coun try — ranked by a United Nations survey as the seventh largest in Asia and the 15th most populous in the world. The present runaway count has far outpaced the country’s 1.5 million population in the 1800’s and, if not contained within manageable levels, would run true to the Malthusian pro phecy that poverty, misery, and suf fering would become inevitable. Aware of this situation, the ad ministration has embarked on a na tional program of family planning in volving both the public and private sectors. Although there have been at tempts to spread the family planning concept in the country, it was not until 1969, when President Marcos through an executive order created a Commission on Population, that a concerted effort was made to check population growth and dovetail it with socio-economic policies. The adoption of family planning as part of the administration’s policy did not, however, alter the emphasis of the campaign on “motivation.” Pro creation continues to be a purely af fair between husband and wife. The state does not intervene in the couple’s decision to the number of children they should have. The de cision of “acceptors” to use the pill, the condom, the foam or the rhythm method is still that of the spouses. The task of the “motivators,” the peo ple involved in the family planning campaign, is merely to educate and open the eyes of the couple to the necessity of checking population growth. To make the government’s effort in family planning more effective, the President issued Decree No. 79 late last year amending a Population Act passed by the defunct Congress in 1971. As a corollary step to the na tionwide campaign being waged by the Population Commission and a dozen or so private organizations on family planning, the President direct ed the integration of subjects on fa mily welfare and responsible parent hood into the curricula of schools of fering medicine, nursing, midwifery, social work, and allied professions. Students taking up these courses are required to have sufficient knowledge of family planning for them to qualify for licensing examinations. A com plementary project in the Department of Education has given population education training to 187,000 grade schoolteachers, 15,000 secondary schoolteachers, and 360 teacher-train ing instructors. The efforts exerted by the Philip pine government in meeting squarely the population problem have caught the attention of experts from the United Nations. Sam Keeny, resident representative of the Population Council, cited the Philippines as an exception to other Asian nations which are confronted with the problem of how to get heads of state to speak out firmly, explicitly and persistently on the importance of a population program. The population expert noted that when President Marcos adopted fa mily planning and birth control as part of his socio-economic policy, he was fully aware that galloping popula tion growth cannot be arrested by mere lip service nor rhetoric at the top. Mr. Keeny also cited as a “wel come” development the sponsorship by the First Lady, Mrs. Imelda R. Marcos, of the P8 million Population. Center Foundation now being cons tructed at the South Superhighway, 14 kilometers south of Manila, which will be a collaborating center for pri vate and public agencies in carrying out an effective family planning pro gram. Page 4 31 March 1973 THE REPUBLIC

pages

4

Media