Docs Exodus

A cure for looming crisis caused by doctors' migration

Inquirer News Service

OUR country's problem with regard to the dwindling number of doctors, with many of them going abroad to work as nurses, just follows the global trend that has been going on for the past 100 years and has seen over 200 million people of different nationalities leaving their homelands to find a decent life elsewhere (UN statistics).

It is depleting the ranks of the medical professionals because the government has neglected the welfare of health workers, not to mention the country's problems with a doddering economy, massive graft and corruption in government, endless politicking and unstable peace and order.

Time will come when only a very few, overworked practicing doctors will be left in the country to care for the health needs of the Filipino people. By then, it will be too late to find a solution to the problem.

Filipinos in the lower economic brackets, especially those in the rural areas, are already suffering from the lack of doctors, nurses and other health care workers. I understand, even the bigger medical centers in Metro Manila are now feeling the pinch.

In the United States, the suggested ideal population-doctor ratio for satisfactory and sustained medical care is 5,000 to 1. There are about 750,000 licensed US doctors but only about 600,000 of them are practicing doctors taking care of the 300 million people in the United States. (The rest are in research, the academe, the military, etc.)

In the Philippines, there are reportedly more than 100,000 licensed doctors, but about one-fourth of them are not in active practice. With a population of 85 million people, this means the people-doctor ratio in the country is 20,000 to 1.

With the migration of so many MD-RNs (1,000 yearly?), coupled with the retirement, disability, or death of the "senior" doctors, expect the gap to widen. Expect a worse scenario with the rapidly declining enrollments in Philippine medical schools and the increasing number of doctors enrolling in nursing schools (6,000 lately, as per DOH report).

The only viable solution to ensure that the Philippines will be able to maintain a decent health care service is to train graduate nurses, who are now in abundance, so that they deliver non-complicated, basic health care services that at present are being provided by family physicians, pediatricians, anesthesiologists (as anesthetist), internists and obstetricians, the same way it is being tried now in several American states.

For this, the nurses should take up an extra two years of postgraduate training. School expenses, including board and lodging, should be shouldered by the government. And yes, the Philippines should pay these nurses good salaries and give them privileges.

CONRAD G. JAVIER, M.D., president, The Broadway Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio; former chief of staff, St. Michael Hospital (a University Hospital of Cleveland Health System, USA)

Letter to Santa

Youngblood : Sans magic

Ingrid Abigail M. Villafuerte
Inquirer News Service

DEAR Santa,

Do you remember that Christmas when you received an extra-long letter from me? It run through six pages of notebook paper, filled back-to-back. I had worked on that Christmas list for a year. I'm sure you remember it because I was probably the only kid crazy enough to spend a whole year writing to you.

Well, I found the letter again. Actually, Mama found it, laughed over it, showed it to Papa so that he could laugh over it, and then gave it to me after getting sick laughing over it. I was going to feel a little offended that they could laugh over a little girl's childish desires, but as I read it, I had to laugh myself.

After all, who in her right mind would want 101 colors of neon Pentel pen? I guess I would, after sitting with friends who always had more Pentel pens than I did. I also asked you for a ballpen that wrote in 200 colors because Mama and Papa always refused to buy me that fat, red ballpen that wrote in 30 colors. They just couldn't understand how cool it was to write one sentence in brown, light blue, yellow, lime green, pink and orange-red. Everyone was doing that, except me.

Maybe I felt that if I couldn't have the fat, red ballpen, the next best thing would be to have Fern Gully ballpens, Beauty and the Beast ballpens or Little Mermaid ballpens. Since none of the above could be found in the stores yet, I was sure to be the envy of everybody else because you would magically produce those ballpen sets especially for me, in addition to the no-sharpening pencils, erasers, jackets, key chains, autograph books and calendars that I also asked for.

I also asked you for 11 sets of jackstones because I was never really good at the game. Everyone else was beating me at jackstones, and I was even more hopeless at playing Chinese jackstones (which is why I also asked for six sets of Chinese jackstones). Maybe having 11 sets of jackstones and six sets of Chinese jackstones to practice on would solve the problem, I then thought.

I don't think it ever occurred to me that maybe I was spending too much time reading instead of playing jackstones. But I'm sure that thought crossed your mind when I asked for Baby-Sitters Club autographed photos, not to mention the long list of books that took up two pages. I'm surprised you didn't leave me a note and point me in the direction of the bookstore.

And what did you think of my even more difficult requests, like No. 28: "For Danjun to learn how to read," or No. 4: "High grades"?

Hey, but you have to give me some credit. At least I also asked for a whole box of SRA (No. 71) and a typewriter, not the electrical one, (No. 80), both of which would have helped me achieve request No. 34.

I read the rest of the list -- which was filled with more requests of no-sharpening pencils, a mini trash can, three tubes of liquid paper, a couple of Game-and-Watch toys that weren't even in the market, 1,000 colors of Crayola, and my own telephone with phone number 6455161 -- with much amusement, but I also felt strangely nostalgic.

You want to know what possessed me to write you that letter that took me one whole year? It was because I thought you were magic. I thought that it was the only way to explain how you could make all the kids in the world happy by giving them new toys, and how you could give out all those toys in one night. Magic. So with a wave of your hand or a snap of your fingers, I thought you could give me all of the 124 items on my list.

Now, 13 years later, I find myself wishing that I still believed you were a real magical being that could make everything all right. Because now, I would ask you for things like world peace, an end to world hunger, a stop to corruption. I would ask you to find a way for neighbors to look out for each other, a way to make families happy despite all their problems, a way for friendships to survive through generations, a way for love to last an entire lifetime.

But perhaps it would be wrong for me to ask all that of you, Santa. Because, no offense meant, you're not the right person to ask. I should be asking God instead.

And maybe, I should also be asking myself how I can make all that a reality, sans magic.

Ingrid Abigail M. Villafuerte, 22, graduated from the Ateneo de Manila University last March with a Bachelor of Arts degree, major in Communications.