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| Rep. Tricia Nicole Velasco-Catera |
The MATA Party-list is pushing for the establishment of a Philippine Eye Center (PEC), a national special needs screening program (NSNSP) and a Philippine Mobile Hospital (PMH) to make eye health care services as frontlines in its fight against eye diseases and disorders.
House Bill (HB) No. 3336 creating the PEC is pending with the House Committee on Government Reorganization, while HB 7929 establishing the NSNSP and HB 3726 creating the PMH are with the House Committee on Health.
“I am asking the chairpersons of those committees to get these bills passed out of committee soon. I am hopeful these three bills could become law before the end of this Third Regular Session of the 17th Congress,” said Rep. Tricia Nicole Q. Velasco-Catera.
The sooner the mobile hospitals are sent out into the field, the better, according to Velasco-Catera.
“The public schools are among the logical priority deployment sites of the mobile hospitals because the public schools are hubs of community activity. Usually, barangay health centers are too small to accommodate lots of people for medical outreach activities. The schools are really where the medical outreach missions usually go,” she said.
“Teachers themselves need excellent eye care as having a clear vision enhances the standard of instruction they provide. Many of them wear corrective eyeglasses and some even have cataracts,” she added.
Under HB 336, the PEC is envisioned to have eye care wards in all the regional government hospitals and stand-alone specialty hospitals plus eye clinics in localities where eye diseases and disorders are particularly prevalent.
Correspondingly, the NSNSP is designed to identify children with eye conditions, along with those others with special needs. There is a wealth of literature on the importance of early identification in improving prevention and early treatment of eye diseases.
In 2012, there were 560,000 Filipinos blind in both eyes. In 2014, the number fell to 300,000. The reason: there was a 20 percent increase in the number of cataract surgeries from 1,087 in 2012 to 1,300 in 2014. The above figures highlight the impact of eye health programs in saving a large number of people from blindness.
“With increases in the number of cataract surgeries in recent years, the number of visually impaired Filipinos has gone down dramatically,” said Velasco-Catera.
“While these bills are underway, we will exert efforts to improve the Department of Health (DoH) budget for eye health services delivery and perform congressional oversight functions vis-a-vis the PhilHealth,” she said.
“The proposed Universal Health Coverage Act (HB 5784), which we have supported with our vote and inputs at committee and at plenary, levels up the PhilHealth from provision of health insurance to health security because it is health security which every Filipino aspires to have,” she said.
HB 5784 is a major revision of the National Health Insurance Program or charter of PhilHealth. A key chapter of the measure is the National Health Security Fund, which Congress put there to improve the sustainability of the PhilHealth to make sure it is financially-able to provide the health security services Filipinos need. Consequently, the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation will be renamed Philippine Health Security Corporation because of its expanded powers and responsibilities. - ConceptNewsCentral
