Senate Bill No. 1 seeks to give med school scholarship grants

The first Senate bill filed in the 18th Congress seeks to tap aspiring doctors and give them scholarship grants in an effort to increase the number of doctors in rural areas.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Monday filed Senate Bill No. 1 for the benefit of “deserving medical students” in state universities and colleges.

Under the proposal, the scholarship grant shall cover the following:

•     tuition fees

•     laboratory and miscellaneous fees

•     required textbooks

•     school supplies and equipment

•     clothing and uniform allowances

•     traveling expenses

•     board and lodging

•     subsistence and living allowances

Qualified for the scholarship grants are passers of the National Medical Admission Test, and a medical school’s entrance exam, whose family income is not sufficient to support an education in medicine.

Incoming medical students must also be part of the top 20 percent of the graduating batch.

Scholars shall be required to serve the country for five years—two years of which must be rendered in state-run hospitals or medical facilities.

The scholarship grants shall be funded by the Department of Health and state universities and colleges.

Sotto cited 2014 data from the Philippine Medical Association which estimated that there would be a shortage of 930,000 doctors in the country once the population reaches 100 million.

By the end of 2019, the country’s population expected to reach 109 million, according to the Commission on Population. —Dona Magsino/VDS, GMA News