Without the White Coat
Philippine Health Care System... is there hope?
With nurses having an average salary of $4,000 dollars per month in the State of California there is a big possibility that 'all' practicing doctors here will start packing their bags and family and take the next jet plane to the US of A to become nurses. If that statement had been a dream then we could just wake up and face it with a cup of coffee, but hell no that's the reality that faces a lot of practicing doctors in the Philippines. That's a whopping P 200,000 pesos per month if the exchange rate is pegged at $1 to 50 pesos. That's what greener pasture means. For the quest of a brighter future for their children, a lot of physicians are choosing this pathway or direction in life, a way of financial stability and a government that can surely promise them medical coverage and benefits when they get older.
In the front lines of medical practice the lines outside the offices of practicing doctors are getting shorter and a handful tend to consult their doctors, but a lot of these patients present themselves in the emergency rooms when their situations or illnesses is on the worst side of the scale. Each patient will just carry around what she/he feels relying in self medications and supportive care, not knowing the deeper consequences or severity of his/her condition, then realized that everything is too late for medical intervention. Gone were the times when medical practice and profession was the most respected field or career in which a lot of parents were so proud that their children dreams of becoming doctors or physicians, but nowadays all parents encourage their children to take up nursing due to its high demand outside the country and by the year 2010 the demand for nurses will be on the 'red', then by that time there will only be a handful of doctors taking care of the sick and ill population of the Philippines. As practicing physicians we may feel the already declining state of medical practice in our midst, then what will happen 2 years from now as some had envisioned the collapsed of the medical system unless aggressive measures will be addressed by this government.
With the streamlining of companies and industries in this country, establishments tend to hire or get the services of HMO (Health Maintenance Organizations) to handle workers' or employee's health whose doctors or physicians are neither trained in basic occupational safety and health. (It is just matter of conscience for this MDs, they all know that they were not trained to practice Occupational Medicine in the first place, but whose gonna blame them, they have to do some 'racket' in order to survive too.) Facing a statistic of a third of physicians leaving the country as nurses will surely hit a rate of a half of the total population of physicians leaving for other countries or the US in search of the 'greener pastures', then by this time our government will wake up and address the problem, but realizing that it is already too late to start some measures or legislations, this administration should make a move now before it is too late.
A lot of training medical students (junior interns/post grad interns) were jumping for joy and jubilation after learning that a cruel, barbaric, and without-a-heart training officer of a prestigious medical center resigned from the department. That concluded the days of a tyrant in the field of medical training who make rounds at 4:00 A.M. lambasting and bad mouthing the residents on duty.
As one successful surgeon had placed it 'I don't see or know of anyone as a practicing doctor who is happy with the present situation, especially when the BIR and other government agencies are always on your back, it seems that all doctors are leaving for other countries as nurses and the present government doesn't even lift a finger to do anything about it, for its part it didn't see the big problem of 'brain-drain' among practicing doctors, and as physicians we only become another statistic among the list of 'needed professionals' who see no future in this country'. So is there any solution to this problem? Then who will take care of the sick and ill community of the Philippines? What will happen to the Philippine Health Care System two years from now? Will it survive a massive exodus of practicing doctors and caring physicians?