COMMUNITY Medicine (COMMED) strongly supports the call to desist the exploitative order to transfer DTTBs from assigned municipalities to serve in Cebu City private hospitals.
On June 26, a memorandum was issued mandating the pullout of physicians of the Doctors to the Barrios program from Region 6 and 7 and their subsequent deployment to private hospitals in Cebu.
This decision is problematic for several reasons. First and foremost, it is a rushed and unconsulted mandate which is not covered by the DTTB contract and violates the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers. As a haphazard move, there were no clear protocols nor assurance of safety measures for the doctors - like vulnerable pawns manipulated in a deadly game.
DTTBs are meant to serve underserved areas, not hospitals, and not the private sector. The Doctors to the Barrios program was created by the DOH in 1993 to address the lack of doctors practicing in rural communities in the Philippines. Doctors are deployed to geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas where communities of thousands have access to only a few doctors or sometimes none at all.
Cebu certainly requires physicians, being a Covid-19 hotspot that is progressively overwhelmed by the surge of cases. But this does not justify pulling out DTTBs from adjacent provinces and regions. Barrios that did not have enough doctors to start with will be left with even less. Moreso, these deployed physicians are not just doctors who treat patients, but more importantly, are public health managers in their respective LGUs. Public health is as important as hospital medicine, and even more in the face of a pandemic. Prevention is always better than cure. And right now, the communities ARE the frontlines.
We have been asking for attention and intervention in the regions since the start of the pandemic, together with the call to mass-hire health workers and increase the capacities of community frontliners. Instead, health workers become victims of discrimination, go to duties without adequate and quality PPEs, make do with delayed and meager hazard pay and benefits and are even shamed by public officials.
Thus, we call on the DOH to address this problem comprehensively. Continue the emergency hiring of health workers despite the easing out of quarantines and restrictions. Address the health workers' needs. And instead of taking away the communities' doctors, give more attention to the provinces and communities, our actual frontlines where the battle has to be won.
DOH should stop releasing vague manipulative directives regarding the reassignment of DTTBs, as the barrio doctors are already doing their best to fulfill what the administration fails to: serve the underserved.
Leonard Javier MD
Community Medicine
(Mobile No. +63 9503647166)
