Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III has cited the passage of the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act and Malasakit Centers Act as the Duterte administration’s top health reforms.
“The Duterte administration’s term from July 2016 to 2022 brought forth many reforms in the health sector–especially with the passage of the Universal Health Care Act and the Malasakit Centers Act,” Duque said during the so-called “Duterte Legacy Summit” on Tuesday, May 31.
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, Duque said they have continued to usher in the implementation of the UHC Law and the establishment of the Malasakit Centers.
The chief of the health department even noted that the response to the pandemic even expedited several UHC-related initiatives.
Such initiatives, according to him, further strengthened the integration of the country’s local health systems into province-wide and city-wide health systems.
Duque highlighted that the UHC Act also mandated the automatic enrollment of all Filipinos in the National Health Insurance Program under state-insurer Philippine Health Insurance Company (PhilHealth).
“This year, 100% of the Filipino population or over 111 million are already covered by the National Health Insurance Program,” he noted.
As such, he said the health department has also improved the provision of service delivery through health infrastructure projects for primary care facilities, as the first point of contact in the healthcare system.
“Through the Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFEP), we were able to fund the development of 7,796 Barangay Health Stations; 3,259 Rural Health Units; and 34 Polyclinics,” he said, adding that under the same Program, the Department of Health (DOH) was also finished the development of 1,798 LGU hospitals and 639 DOH hospitals.
Meanwhile, Duque said over 151 Malasakit Centers have already been established on various hospital premises nationwide, as of May 26.
He noted that the Medical Assistance to Indigent Patient Program or MAIPP under the Malasakit Program Office (MPO) has provided financial assistance to over 3.6 million patients from January 2018 to December
2021.
Cheaper medicines
Duque also took note of Pres. Duterte’s Executive Order (EO) No. 155 which set maximum retail price (MRP) and/or maximum wholesale price (MWP) for drugs and medicines used to address the leading causes of morbidity in the country. He signed the EO in 2021.
“The maximum retail price is the price cap of medicines given to the customers, which means that our essential medicines can now be accessed at a much cheaper price,” he said.
Due to the Maximum Retail Price regulation, the DOH secretary said the prices of medicines for top-burden diseases were reduced by up to 93 percent.