Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 24) — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has approved the proposal to create a universal health care coordinating council to oversee the nationwide implementation of the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act, the Department of Health (DOH) said on Tuesday.
At a briefing, DOH Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said the problem that the UHC coordinating council will try to fix is the fragmentation of the health system.The council will serve as a national governance body that will oversee the implementation of Universal Health Care Act nationwide, the project and estimate total national cost for UHC and also implementation of the Universal Health Care at local government level,” said Herbosa, who added the council will also be where discussions on concerns regarding the implementation of the UHC will happen.The DOH will serve as the council chair, with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) as co-chair.Several other government agencies will be part of the council. Among them are the Departments of Information and Communications Technology, Finance, Budget and Management, as well as the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, Commission on Higher Education and Department of Education.They are working to consolidate the health systems, said Herbosa.When the UHC Act was implemented the aim was to integrate health systems. So, you’ll come up with the provincial health board run by the governor and then it would consolidate all the health systems in the different mayors in his province – so, this is how the integration will happen,” he explained.Herbosa also said the council will oversee how the health fund would be spent.There is going to be a special health fund which is actually emphasized in the law and that’s why we created the council to watch the spending of the money on the special health fund and the implementation would be standard for all different LGUs,” he said.
