Senate ratifies Doktor Para sa Bayan bill amid COVID-19 pandemic

The Senate on Thursday ratified the final version of a bill seeking to provide free medical education in the Philippines.

The bicameral conference committee report, reconciling Senate Bill No. 1520 and House Bill No. 6756 or the proposed Doktor Para sa Bayan Act, aims to make medical schools accessible to poor but deserving Filipino students by covering their tuition and other school fees, required textbooks, uniform, and living allowances, among others.

"The coronavirus pandemic has only exposed and exacerbated the Achilles’ heel of our healthcare system: the shrinking supply of Filipino medical doctors. Imagine, we only have 3 doctors per 10,000 population, far from the ideal ratio of 10 doctors per 10,000 population," Senator Joel Villanueva, sponsor of the bill, said in a manifestation.

To qualify for the scholarship, the applicant must be a natural-born or naturalized Filipino citizen residing in the Philippines, whose family income is insufficient to support medical education.

The student must also pass the National Medical Admission Test and entrance exam required by the medical school.

Applicants from municipalities without government physicians shall be prioritized to ensure that each town in the country would have at least one doctor.

After graduating and passing the licensure examinations for physicians, the scholar must fulfill the mandatory return service agreement by serving his hometown or any underserved municipality determined by the Department of Health as a priority area—one year for every year that the scholarship has been availed of.

Otherwise, the physician-scholar will be required to pay twice the full cost of the scholarship, including other benefits and related expenses.

All scholars under the existing medical scholarship programs of the Department of Health and the Commission on Higher Education shall automatically be eligible to avail the benefits under this measure.

Villanueva previously said the country is lacking 80,000 more physicians to meet the ideal doctor-to-population ratio of 10:10,000.

The passage of the bill came as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to highlight the need to strengthen the medical workforce in the country. — RSJ, GMA News