Women’s alliance GABRIELA on World Health Day talked about the “terrible” inaccessibility to healthcare of Filipino women considering health in the country as a “privilege” instead of a “right.”

GABRIELA said it addressed concerns on healthcare in the Philippines, being one of the speakers in an assembly of the People’s Health Movement in Argentina with participants of more than 3,000 organizations globally.

In a statement on Sunday, April 7, the group blamed the decade-long privatization and the government’s low prioritization causing the healthcare inaccessibility in the country.

“Instead of being regarded as a universal basic right, health in the Philippines is a privilege enjoyed only by the few who can afford it. The rest of the toiling women and masses are left to fend for themselves, while the government passes over its responsibility to private, for-profit corporations,” said GABRIELA Deputy Secretary General Cora Agovida.

Based on the group’s Filipino Women's Health Situation briefer, it said six out of 10 hospitals in the Philippines are privatized, with the rest of the public health facilities having a hard time to continue operating because of low budgets that resulted in “overburdened health workers, dilapidated infrastructures, barely functional and limited equipment, among others,” as the group claimed.

“In the worst cases, women paid the ultimate price due to the weaknesses of the Philippine healthcare system, which was brought to the brink of collapse at the height of the pandemic. Several women died giving birth as multiple hospitals refused them service because they were already at full capacity,” Agovida added.