DOH-EASTERN VISAYAS

Reforming the medical education system is key to solving the shortage of healthcare professionals in the Philippines, industry leaders said on Thursday.

The physician-to-population ratio in 2022 was only around 3.6 doctors per 10,000 people, West Visayas State University President Joselito F. Villaruz said during a media roundtable on Thursday, citing data from the Department of Health.

This figure is significantly lower than the ideal ratio of 10 doctors per 10,000 people, he noted. “It will take us quite a number of years to fill in that gap.”

He said the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) is formulating a roadmap for the Philippine medical program.

“This will include reorienting our curriculum towards primary healthcare and providing strategies on how we can improve the quality of graduates by providing them with experiential learning in areas where our students will be exposed.”

“They will also increase the number of doctor graduates produced in a shorter period of time,” Mr. Villaruz said, referring to CHEd allowing a shorter-term program for medical schools.

However, he noted that it is still unclear if a shorter medical school program will be suitable or effective for every medical school. 

“But we are piloting this project… Eventually, who knows, we might need to implement this across all schools,” he added.

Recruiting healthcare professionals should also start at a younger age, said Madeleine Grace M. Sosa, former dean of De La Salle Medical and Health Sciences Institute and former President of Asian Hospital and Medical Center.

“If we want to develop more nurses, we have to start with recruitment. The institution should be able to provide for an area where grade 11 and 12 can be the population where you can get your future students,” she said.

“You need to have a way to hold on to your graders, middle schoolers, high schoolers, and students in grades 11 and 12. These are what you call feeder schools,” she added.

Reorienting the curriculum to give medical students earlier exposure to patients will also help motivate them to finish the program, Ms. Sosa noted.

She also said that to boost the number of healthcare professionals in remote areas, the government could expand medical education by establishing medical schools in state universities, especially since rural areas face challenges in accessing up-to-date technology.

Eleanor B. Almoro from the Professional Regulatory Board of Medicine noted that as of October 2022, the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) had a total of 152,055 registered physicians, with 99,561 of them being active.

“Divided by the Philippine population, this gives us a physician density value of nine doctors per 10,000 people,” she said.

PRC data also shows that the areas with the lowest healthcare professional density are in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and Palawan, or Region 4B, with two physicians per 10,000 people.

The National Capital Region still has the highest number of physicians at 29 per 10,000. — Aaron Michael C. Sy

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