We need a grand coalition of Filipino physicians
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2020 06:13:08 +0000
Many doctors have established medical or surgical practices in major metropolitan hospitals with comfortable lifestyles, regular sources of income, a steady volume of patients and some measurable capacity to enjoy life and indulge (even overindulge) in life’s luxuries.
This has therefore made some physicians indifferent on certain alarming issues: the exodus of physicians and nurses to US, Europe, Middle East and Japan; the career shift of Filipino doctors to nursing; the dwindling number of medical students; the decline in number of applicants for residency and fellowship training programs; and the status of the medical malpractice bill in Congress.
The apathy and false sense of security nurtured by a seemingly contented and established practice is the worst attitude one could ever adapt in these extraordinary times.
Why extraordinary?
According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (Manila Times, September 13, 2004), a total of 3,657 physicians migrated to different countries from 1996 to 2002. The Philippine College of Physicians, in another newspaper report on September 21, maintained that close to 10,000 Filipino physicians have shifted to nursing in the last three years.
The Philippine Nurses Association estimates that some 2,000 doctors have enrolled in major nursing schools in the country—including chiefs of hospitals and consultants. The National Institute of Health Policy Development puts the number at around 3,000 (Manila Times, February 9, 2004). This is touted to be twice the number of licensed medical professionals produced each year.
These figures will further escalate since the demand for nurses abroad is increasing. In the United States alone, the demand is estimated at 600,000 until 2020 (Manila Times, May 25, 2004).
And while Filipino medical professionals scramble to join the diaspora to foreign countries, some sectors in media, as well as Congress, have renewed their own passionate and vilifying crusade (call it a witch hunt) against Filipino physicians. For one, Korina Sanchez of ABS-CBN has resumed her criticisms against doctors in her shows. Sergio Osmeña has authored Senate Bill 1720, which criminalizes medical malpractice and requires doctors to get mandatory malpractice insurance.
If the exodus of physicians is already fire, then Sanchez’s misplaced crusade and Osmeña’s Senate Bill make for the perfect fuel that could create an even bigger conflagration.
On top of these are other factors that would certainly keep the problem ablaze—managed care abuses, delayed payments of physicians, credentialing difficulties and stiff requirements for practicing in major hospitals, the unfair and persecutory taxation schemes and paper chase of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and the prevailing political uncertainty and socioeconomic upheavals in the country.
A lingering question emerges from the imbroglio of these unfolding events: Shall we just enjoy and watch the helplessness and ineptitude of government and related entities to abate the exodus of medical professionals to other countries?
Shall we just wait to wake up one day when our major hospitals no longer have trainees to immediately respond to patient complaints and emergency calls? Shall we wait for all medical schools to close due to the small number of enrollees, for district and community hospitals to shut down because of inadequate staff, for Senate to approve a harsh bill and require us to pay hefty insurance premiums?
Ultimately, shall we just wait for our country’s health care system to collapse?
What we need today is not harsh legislation, health-care budget reduction, severe taxation and this unfair vilification. It is time we put up a Grand Coalition of Filipino Medical Professionals whose objectives will be to protect the interests and promote the welfare of Filipino physicians.
The Filipino medical practitioners need to band together to provide us an effective rallying point, a power voice, the lobbying capability, the bargaining power and the solid clout we need and deserve as a group (maybe even the collective electorate vote that politicians would move heaven and earth to obtain).
Even the recently promulgated Code of Medical Ethics of the Philippine College of Physicians explicitly stated:
“Advocacy in all matters affecting peoples’ health and the practice of the profession should be strongly encouraged.”
This coalition should consider every single Filipino physician a member, one who is of course licensed to practice in the Philippines. It should include and invite everyone regardless of specialty or subspecialty, hospital affiliation, university of origin, area of practice, ideology or political persuasion.
Only a massive organized grouping of Filipino medical professionals can protect our cause. We cannot (and maybe we should not) prevent Filipino physicians from working in a US hospital where he can get a monthly pay of $3,000 or even in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates where the average pay is $1,000. We cannot coerce anyone to stay in this country when greener pastures and more stable economic and political environments abound elsewhere.
We cannot dictate anyone to stay when we cannot provide the very future that one seeks.
But we should prevent those who have opted to stay behind to think of leaving. We should protect, uplift and safeguard the welfare of those who still respond to their Hippocratic calling in this country. Let those who leave seek the future that had seemed elusive. Back here, at home, let us claim a future we all rightfully deserve.
Saturnino P. Javier