Ric Michael P.

De Vera August 16, 2017

2012-21642 HS 201

Paz Y. Ente: A Trip to the Local Health Centers and more

As a future physician, it is important to understand the current state of the Philippine health
system. For my assignment, I went to Barangay Health center in Kamuning, Quezon City. In my visit in
Barangay Health Center in Kamuning, I accompanied my mother to have her check-up since she has
hypertension. However, when we arrive there, only health workers and nurses are around and a single
patient. We are told that the doctor is only present in the center every Wednesday. We went there Friday,
so no physician is available to check her up. Since I was already there and I cannot observe their actual
service, I just interviewed the nurse and the health worker to know more about the Health center. As I
observed, the size of the Health Center is just enough, there are a lot of chairs for waiting patients and it
is not hot inside. So I will give their facility a passing mark. When I asked about their services, according
to the nurse and the other patient, they said that all services in the health center are free, they have free
immunizations for children, maternal health care, basic treatment, family planning, dental services and
TB-Dots.

The only problem they raised is the lack of physician in their center. As I said earlier, their physician
visits only once a week. According to the health worker, the physician assigned to them handle two more
health centers in a week. This is a testament that we really lack doctors, especially those who practice in
Community Health Care Centers. This could be also a problem in doctors community, I think physicians
who practice medicine in health centers are being seen lowly and has lower salary compared to specialists
thus only few choose to serve in health centers. I think, more incentive on community health care center
doctors should be given to attract doctors in serving in health care centers.

Aside from lack of doctors, the access to free medicine is limited in the health center. When my
mom asked for her medications, they said that they ran out of stack of that medication. Even if the
consultation from the doctor is free, it is still useless if the individual cannot buy the medicine that the
doctor asked them to take. Most patient from poor families cannot buy medicine or if they can, they
cannot follow it up if the medicine they initially bought are consumed already, thus not achieving the
treatment they need.

Lastly, I think that the participation of community is the most important factor in achieving better
community health. I can say that the services offered in the Barangay Health Center is great, however it
is still useless if no one will avail it. In our place, there are still a lot of children undernourished and do
have vaccinations even they are free. I think the problem here, aside from lack of money to buy nutritious
food, is lack of knowledge of the parents for proper care of their children. In fact, even though the health
center is just one jeepney ride from our place, the health worker still need to go our area to follow up on
the state of the children because the parents do not bring their children regularly to the health center.
Most do not practice family planning, thus making their situation worse because they need to feed more
children while they still cannot give proper care for their current children. Some do not know the
importance of vaccination and are not aware that it is free in health centers. So aside from providing
quality health care, the quality of education must be improved in primary level of education. Also, since
not everyone can afford to go to school, community seminars can also be done to educate the people.