WORKERS and urban poor led by Anakpawis Partylist held a picket-protest in front of the Philippine Orthopedic Center in Quezon City to condemn the looming privatization of the hospital, saying patients like them will be paying more for healthcare should the project push through.
Anakpawis Executive Vice President Joel Maglunsod condemned the Aquino administration for abandoning its duty of providing quality and accessible healthcare for the Filipino people especially the poor.
“The Aquino government is depriving the Filipino masses of their basic and constitutional right to accessible health care service. It is prioritizing the interests of big businesses who want to profit by providing a vital government service,” Maglunsod said.
“Under the guise of corporatization, Aquino is handing out our public hospitals to big businesses. This would further make healthcare service inaccessible for Filipinos especially the impoverished masses of workers, farmers and the urban poor,” he added.
The contract for the modernization of the POC has already gone through a bidding process last January and is expected to be awarded to business tycoon Manny V. Pangilinan’s Metro Pacific Investment Corp. (MPIC) by mid-April.
“By selling out the POC’s biggest share to Pangilinan, the Aquino administration has put the fate of its patients in the hands of a private business that would surely prioritize profits over service. Healthcare is a constitutional right and should therefore be provided by the government for the Filipino people,” Maglunsod said.
Anakpawis also refuted the government’s claim that PhilHealth cards are enough to cover the healthcare expenses of the poor.
“PhilHealth could only cover a total of 8.9 per cent of the country’s health expenditures. Around 52.7 per cent of total hospital expenses comes out of the pocket of the Filipino people” Maglunsod said, citing the Ntional Statistics Coordination Board’s (NSCB) Philippine Health Account of 2010.
“PhilHealth’s services are still limited, in comparison to both people’s health needs and the amount of contributions it receives,” he added.
“What we need is a higher budget for healthcare, not forms of insurance which come from our pockets. We have suffered enough from extorbitant and unreasonable taxes. We have to fight to make these taxes work for us,” Maglunsod said.
Anakpawis warned that this morning’s action is just the beginning of a series of protests against the privatization of public hospitals.
“This is just the beginning. We assure Pres. Noynoy Aquino that bigger and bolder protests would come if he persists on prioritizing big business profits over ordinary people’s health,” Maglunsod said.