DAVAO CITY—Government hospitals should improve on the attitudes of their personnel doing frontline services to ordinary Filipinos to remove biases and misconceptions of ill-treatment on poor and indigent patients, the governor of Compostela Valley said.
“There is a need to change general attitudes and perceptions toward health care. We need to strengthen our health communication system to thwart generalizations, misconceptions, and misrepresentations of health care,” Gov. Jayvee Tyron L. Uy said in a speech before participants to the Provincial Health Summit 2018 held last week at Big 8 Corporate Hotel in Tagum City.
He issued the appeal to government hospitals as he said the national government has already attended to the need for available medicines and medical supplies to poor patients.
“We don’t even lack social workers in our hospitals. In fact, I am proud that we are one of the provinces who employ liaison officers, or social workers, in our hospitals,” he added, citing their presence in the Compostela Valley Provincial Hospital and Davao Regional Medical Center-Tagum City.
However, he said, “there is a need to strengthen awareness of people toward the existence of aid and assistance to make the option to go to hospitals attractive.”
“We need to improve the access of people to our health facilities through enhancing the availability of transportation, especially in the province’s geographically isolated and disadvantaged area,” he added.
The health summit was initiated through the Provincial Leadership and Governance Program, a project inspired by help from civil-society organizations to persuade governors to emphasize and prioritize health developments in the Provincial Local Investment Plan for Health.