Back in 2007, a 67 year old acquaintance of mine, suddenly suffered heart attack while preparing lunch at his residence. He was immediately rushed to the closest public hospital here in Madrid, and the doctors decided to put him under the knife, so to speak, or undertake a by-pass operation. He underwent surgery two days after and in a week’s time, after the operation, my friend was up and about…of course…not in the sense of “running to and fro”, but was already able to stand up and move around his house. The speedy action and decision of the medical doctors in that public hospital in Madrid to submit him to a heart by-pass saved the life of that friend, and to this moment, at the age of 71, he appears to have “renewed” his life, as he himself said, that he is feeling better as days pass.
The quick decision to operate my friend was an example on how a health care system works in a developed country like Spain. To top that, my friend did not spend a single cent for the operation. Everything was taken care of, operation costs, doctor’s fees, medicines, rehabilitation process, etc.
I could venture to say that developed countries are developed because of the people’s sound health – “Health is wealth” – as the saying goes, which I think is not alien to the Philippines’ Department of Health and Department of Social Welfare and Development. Certainly, Philippine government officials and political leaders have already seen for themselves how health care systems work while visiting other countries to gather knowledge, information, or further strengthen bilateral relations. They “scout” for ideas, programs, techniques, schemes, concepts, or patterns, that could be adopted and applied in the Philippine scenario on health care as well as on development. It appears though, that despite having spent millions on trips abroad, there is no sign that any of the things learnt outside could even be adopted or could I say, even “copied”. Of course, a lot of knowledge was acquired, but what is holding up our officials and politicians to provide an honest to goodness health care program to the people, remains a big question mark.
Health care development stems from the public officials desire to meet the basic needs of the population and a sound health is a basic element in the lives of people to engage themselves in their day to day activities whether in business, industry, agriculture, education and what not. “Health is wealth”, if I may reiterate, but perhaps Filipino political leaders have a different way of expressing the adage and instead say “wealth is our health”, and definitely, it holds true insofar as they are concerned.
See you next time….Eric
P.S.
But please check out the link below which I think is quite interesting for the Filipino population.
CCT report reaffirms goal to improve lives
http://pantawid.dswd.gov.ph/index.php/news/254-cct-report-reaffirms-goal-to-improve-lives
Tell us what you think about it. Regards to all.
FilipinosAround 