State of the nation’s health

The Health department continues its mandate to bring quality healthcare to every Filipino.

For 2024, the Department of Health (DOH) has been working hard to increase the immunization coverage of children under five years old to 95 percent; lower stunting or under nutrition rate among young children from the current 27 percent to 14 percent; reduce maternal mortality deaths and teenage pregnancy; lower cases of tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus; and decrease cases of non-communicable diseases like hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer.

BUCAS Centers

One of the priority projects of the DOH heading to this year is to build ambulatory primary care centers or Bagong Urgent Care and Ambulatory Services (BUCAS) Centers complete with laboratories, medicines, and imaging so that people need not flock to big hospitals, Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa bared in an interview with a state media.

The creation of a national ambulatory and urgent care centers nationwide, Herbosa said, will ensure that the poor receives the same healthcare services much like individuals who go to modern hospitals.

BUCAS Centers are mid-level diagnostic and therapeutic centers that will give primary care to those who are more than two hours away from regional hospitals.

There are currently 10 operational BUCAS Centers all over Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

The DOH is eyeing to open another eight in the next few months.

Road safety

To address the number of deaths because of road crashes, the DOH stressed that existing road safety initiatives should align with the five pillars of road safety: road safety management, safer roads and mobility, safer vehicles, safer road users, and post-crash response.

Herbosa said these pillars aim to enhance access to pre-hospital care, trauma care, and rehabilitation for road crash victims.

"Ensuring road safety requires a concerted effort from all sectors of society,” Herbosa said.

Release of health emergency allowance

Recently, the Department of Budget and Management released on July the Special Allotment Release Order and Notice of Cash Allocation amounting to P27.453 billion health emergency allowance.

The funding will cover the payment of 5,039,926 remaining validated unpaid HEA and 4,283 Covid-19 sickness and death compensation claims of eligible healthcare and non-healthcare workers, according to the DBM.

The DOH, meanwhile, assured that it will immediately sub-allot the P27-billion HEA to Centers for Health, which will then facilitate the disbursement of HEA to the local government units and private health facilities under their jurisdiction.