WHO to PHL govt: Spend more to ensure health care for all

The government should ramp up its health-related spending to at least six percent of the annual gross domestic product (GDP) to ensure quality healthcare for all, the World Health Organization (WHO) country representative said Thursday. The Philippines annually spends only around 3.5 percent of GDP on health, noted WHO country representative Dr. Soe Nyunt-U in a seminar-workshop for journalists in Quezon City. “If the government is not willing to spend money, forget about the substantial gains in these reforms," Soe said in his talk about universal healthcare in the seminar organized by the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP) and the Journalism for Nation-Building Foundation. Soe explained that the Philippine government, as well as those of other developing countries, tends to scrimp on health-related expenses. Filipinos are then forced to shell out personal funds to access health care – an inequitable set-up, according to Soe. “The poor still cannot afford it," he said. In 2010, a survey by pollster Social Weather Stations showed that nine out of 10 Filipinos expect universal healthcare from the government. Like the Philippines, other Southeast Asian countries spend the least on health, making the region account for the highest out-of-pocket expenses for healthcare among all WHO regions, the agency said in a statement in August. — KBK/HS, GMA News