President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. stressed the importance of checking on other health issues that the country is facing aside from Covid-19, the Department of Health (DOH) said on Tuesday, Dec. 6.
This was the instruction of Marcos to the DOH during a meeting on Tuesday, said DOH Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire.
“When we were having the discussion, the President asked about tuberculosis and HIV kung bakit daw tumataas and bakit hanggang sa ngayon ang tuberculosis (TB)—isa pa din tayo doon sa mga bansa na may pinakamataas na incidence ng TB (why is it that cases are rising. Also, regarding tuberculosis–we are among countries with the highest incidence of TB),” said Vergeire during a press briefing.
“So, we explained it to him and his instruction or guidance was dapat tingnan na rin yung mga non-Covid programs natin (that we should also look at our non-Covid programs),” she added.
The DOH assured Marcos that they are also focusing on other health programs, said Vergeire.
“We have launched primary care, we're moving towards attaining objectives of Universal Health Care,” said Vergeire.
“Dahil kapag nagawa natin itong primary care sa bawat lugar sa bansa, kasama na dito yung prevention natin on tuberculosis and HIV; kasama na din dito yung adequate management natin doon sa taong may sakit ng TB at HIV (If we do this primary care in every area of the country, this includes prevention of tuberculosis and HIV. This also includes our adequate management for those afflicted with TB and HIV),” she added.
During the meeting, the DOH also discussed with Marcos the planned procurement of bivalent Covid-19 vaccines, benefits and compensation of health workers, and goals in relation to Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, said Vergeire.
Top performing agencies
Meanwhile, Vergeire welcomed the result of the survey of Octa Research Group that DOH was among the top three performing agencies of the national government.
“Kami po ay nagagalak na yung performance ng Kagawaran ng Kalusugan ay binibigyang recognition at yung ating mga kababayan na kasama sa survey ay nagbigay ng positive na recommendation for us (We are glad that the performance of the Department of Health is being recognized and that our citizens, who participated in the survey, have given us a positive recommendation),” she said.
“We thank ang ating mga health workers, ang ating mga frontliners dahil dahil sa kanila kaya tayo nagkakaroon ng ganitong performance on the ground (We thank our health workers, our frontliners as it is because of them that we are able to have this kind of performance on the ground),” she added.
The Department of Education and the Department of Social Welfare and Development were also among the top three performing agencies, based on the OCTA Research-Tugon ng Masa survey released on Tuesday.