Senator Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara on Monday urged the Senate to approve the bill seeking to establish hospitals within state universities and colleges (SUCs) that offer medical courses. 

In filing Senate Bill No. 1850, the proposed Healthcare Facility Augmentation Act, Angara said he sees it necessary to construct hospitals within the SUCs. The construction of these SUC hospitals, he said, will serve as the training ground for the medical students of the SUC.

“Just like what UP-PGH (University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital) has long been doing. Hindi na sila kailangan pa lumayo sa sarili nilang bakod para makakuha ng experience na kailangan para maging doktor at nars, (They don’t need to go far from their place to look for experience as a doctor and nurse),” Angara said.

Under the bill, graduates of the medical degree programs in the concerned SUCs who availed of a government scholarship program shall be required to render their return service in the hospital of the SUC from which they graduated.

So far, a total of nine SUCs are offering medical courses. These are the University of Northern Philippines, Mariano Marcos State University, University of the Philippines- Leyte, Cagayan State University, Mindanao State University- General Santos, Bicol University, West Visayas State University,  Mindanao State University- Marawi, and University of the Philippines- Manila.

The nine SUCs with medical degrees are situated in eight regions, posing a major hindrance to the students, not situated in those regions, who may want to enroll in SUCs and pursue a medical degree.

There are 45 SUCs that offer Bachelor of Science in Nursing courses.

The senator said he would like to see more SUCs offering medical courses so that students, who wish to pursue a career in medicine, will have a greater chance to do so wherever they are located.

At the same time, Angara said he filed Senate Resolution No. 528, primarily to ask the Senate to look into the financial requirement needed to establish public medical schools in every region of the country. 

“SUCs, as they are funded by the national government and are deemed the most accessible higher educational institution to the general public, should take up the cudgels of ensuring that their own regions would have enough medical manpower to be ready for existing and emerging health services needs of the country,” Angara said in filing the resolution.

Angara explained building hospitals within the SUCs will help fortify the country’s health system, noting that when the Philippines was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire nation was confronted with the reality there were not enough hospital beds to cater to the patients and there is a lack of doctors and nurses to treat them.

“The reality that six out of 10 Filipinos die without seeing a medical professional is very alarming. After seeing the data, it explains why our healthcare system was overwhelmed when we were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the lawmaker lamented.

“We need to strengthen our healthcare system and two of the initial steps that we can take is to produce more doctors and nurses and to increase the number of hospitals that will serve our people,” he added.