Uphill battle Health Secretary Francisco Duque says his agency faces strong challenge to provide quality public health care system because of huge budget cut. Contributed Photo

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Friday said his agency is set to lose P14 billion in its annual budget for 2019 amid the rising number of measles cases in the country.

Duque explained the budget department had initially proposed to cut P31 billion from his office’s initial P140-B proposal before eventually settling for P14 billion.

The health chief, however, said the cut could greatly affect their operations especially now that they are in the middle of a fight to quell measles outbreak in various areas of the country.

The agency is currently fighting several measles outbreaks in Luzon and the Visayas, including Metro Manila, Calabarzon, Western Visayas and Central Visayas,

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) was taking the health agency to task over its failure to complete its lined-up projects including the construction of thousands of barangay health stations.

“We can’t blame DBM for making the budget cut because the condition is to clean up all those pending projects before adding to the budget,” Duque said.

To recall, Duque blew the whistle last year on alleged irregularities in the P8.1 billion barangay health stations program of the Aquino administration.

The project envisioned to build some 5,700 barangay health stations all over the country.

Only 270 units, however, have been completed as of 2018, most of which are below their required specifications.

House committee on health chairman Rep. Angelina Tan earlier had said the DoH in 2015 approved a P7-billion contract for building 5,000 barangay health stations.

Duque stressed that the health department is providing a list of priority projects for its health facilities and enhancement program.

The list includes hospitals that do not have enough equipment and facilities that are at least 90 percent completed.