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The Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) told a House of Representatives panel that it has identified five allied healthcare professions that will face “supply and demand” challenges in terms of manpower.

During the budget deliberations of the agency before the Committee on Appropriations on Thursday, Aug. 8, CHEd Chairman Prospero de Vera said the agency has met with the Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC) to identify these five areas “in crisis”.

De Vera says the most urgent concern for the country’s healthcare system is the declining manpower of radiologic technologists. He says this is currently an “ongoing crisis”.

Meanwhile, medical technologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and pharmacists will face their respective crises “within three to five years”.

“Out of the five, there is a serious problem now with the availability of radiologic technologists in the country. The other four, the projected problem will be more pronounced three to five years from now,” said De Vera.

The CHEd chairman says the commission has already started to implement interventions for radiologic technologists this year.

Based on the 2025 National Expenditure Program (NEP), CHEd would be allotted P31 billion for next year’s budget. 

De Vera says P909 million of this amount would be used to increase the funding for medical scholarships.

“The P909 million will be able to cover continuing scholars and also accept 500 new medical scholars in our 22 state universities and colleges with medical programs,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said the agency is also developing a master plan to address the “supply and demand” challenges for the other allied health jobs.

Iloilo 1st district Rep. Janette Garin, who presided over the panel, said sonographers should also be included in health professions that will soon face manpower issues.

The lawmaker told De Vera that there were still enough radiologic technologists in the country, whereas sonographers were severely lacking.

“Sonographers are the ones operating the machine to get an image. With the technology now, you can just get images on the field and then throw it to the hospital. Ang problema kulang ng training at mas mahaba ang training (The problem is the lack of training, as well as the length of training),” explained Garin, a former Department of Health (DOH) secretary. 

Sonographers are trained to acquire and analyze images of many parts of the body through imaging equipment and soundwaves known as ultrasounds.