BUDGET DELIBERATION. Department of Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa answers queries during the plenary debates on the agency’s 2025 budget at the Senate in Pasay City on Nov. 20, 2024. Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said the DOH has received a PHP267.8 billion budget for this year, the biggest in its history, under the current administration. (PNA photo by Avito Dalan)
MANILA – President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. needs all Filipinos to have access to quality fitness, especially those living in geographically remote and disadvantaged areas.
Therefore, the Marcos leadership promises that the Ministry of Health (DOH) will be able to provide fitness without interruptions.
In a Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon interview, Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said the DOH has received a PHP267.8 billion budget for this year, the biggest in its history, under the current administration.
“Technically, ‘yung sinasabi niyang’ wag kayong mag-alala sa kalusugan, nilalagyan niya talaga ng budget (Technically, he allocated a budget for fitness when he told the public to worry about their fitness),” Array said.
He pointed out that Marcos had legacy projects such as cancer centers and children’s centers with a budget for their construction.
“PBBM puts cash where it says so. Kapag sinabi niyang dagdagan ng pondo ang kalusugan, dinagdagan niya ang pondo (He increased the fitness fund when he said he would),” he added.
Following the signing of the 2025 national budget in December last year, Marcos instructed Herbosa to guarantee the provision of health benefit packages to all members of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) despite the state insurer’s zero government subsidy.
Emerging from the pandemic, the Ministry of Health faced demanding situations in terms of nutrition, immunization, maternal mortality, tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis, non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, intellectual aptitude, cancer and digitalization of the fitness system.
To combat these diseases, the Herbosa firm is focusing its efforts on fitness promotion, disease prevention, and acute and emergency care.
The Ministry of Health has opened 42 Bagong Urgent Care and Outpatient Services (BUCAS) centers to provide the most productive emergency and outpatient care to the poorest families.
Twenty of the centers are in Luzon, eight are in Visayas and 14 are in Mindanao. They are open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Herbosa said that family members and doctors from the network were assigned to the centers.
Free basic healthcare services are provided through the 83 Bagong Pilipinas (New Philippines) mobile clinics with complete equipment such as digital X-ray, CT scan, ultrasound, hematology analyzer for blood tests, binocular microscope, ophthalmoscope for eye tests, lab-grade refrigerator and telemedicine equipment
Several hospitals are expanding, Herbosa said, mentioning as an example the multi-specialty center built in Clark, Pampanga.
“We are expanding many hospitals – centers, specialized centers in the Pilipinas region, utos ni President ‘yan (nationwide, it is the order of the president). Gagayahin’yung ating bituka dyan hospitals in the Northern Triangle, in all probability lungs, kidneys , centers and youth (We will mirror those hospitals in the Northern Triangle: lung, kidney, center and youth hospitals) Una’yung sa (the first is). in) Clark,” he said. (OTP)