Strengthening public health system a good 2022 election platform –Dayrit

Strengthening the public health system should be a necessity in terms of having a good health agenda in the upcoming 2022 elections, according to former Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit.

In a forum on Saturday, Dayrit said the public health system needed to have additional funding to further be on par with private hospitals.

"You have to invest in it, and you have to nurture it," Dayrit said, adding that the weakest part of the public health system was the primary system.

In an ideal health system, hospitals should be well funded and have connections with rural health units.

"If we can do that in the next term, I think it is a huge advance, because we don't have it. And that primary system, that will be your first defense against any pandemic," Dayrit said.

"My most important call for health goes beyond the health sector or the Health Department. We will always get the government we deserve," said Dr. Esperanza Cabral, another former Health Secretary.

"Unless we learn to install people with integrity, who will put the public interest ahead of themselves, nothing will happen," Cabral added.

Also during the forum, Cabral cited contact tracing czar Benjamin Magalong's warning that in many areas, contact tracing did not go beyond the household of COVID-19 cases.

"It looks like our only way out of this pandemic is to vaccinate ourselves into herd immunity," Cabral said. — DVM, GMA News