A leader of the House of Representatives on Sunday said the Palace and the House of Representatives are now in talks on how the government will restore or lessen the deep slash in the proposed health budget for next year.
Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. said that from P109 billion this year, the government has allocated to the Department of Health next year about P74 billion, which is P35 billion lower than the DOH budget for this year.
“It [the budget cut] is so deep that it hits a major artery of government service,” Andaya said.
The virtual cancellation of the Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFEP) from the 2018 level of P30.3 billion to P100 million next year accounted for bulk of the cuts.
If the DOH and the Department of Budget and Management are saying they want to pause the implementation of the HFEP because “we’re suffering from budget indigestion” and the backlog is long, “and most of these are infrastructure in nature, then we might buy their reasoning,” Andaya said.
Began during the Aquino administration, the HFEP is a multiyear program to improve health facilities, such as hospitals and barangay health stations, but was recently mired in controversies with regards to alleged irregularities in its implementation.
“But how about the other needs of the DOH such as medicine, equipment and other fast-moving expenditures? There are also hospitals in need of building expansion. The health system needs an infusion of funds, not a cutback,” Andaya said.
“Or can we not give assistance to patients in charity wards because whatever they can get from PhilHealth will not be enough to defray the cost of treating life-threatening illnesses?”
Andaya said one downside of the proposed DOH budget cut is the possible displacement of medical professionals under its health deployment program where doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists are sent to rural areas and urban centers with high poverty incidence.