The future of healthcare in the Philippines in 2022 cannot be predicted easily as the country continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic as the number of cases fluctuates and the variants come and go. Interestingly, health care in the country, despite a bleak background, healthcare in the Philippines continues to improve as we see interesting developments that can help us view the future of healthcare.
With the passage of the Universal Healthcare Act in early 2019, it revitalized health care through a whole-of-system, whole-of-government, whole-of-society, people-centered approach which can still be seen to this day. With this act, all Filipino citizens will automatically be registered in the national program.
One of the notable development of healthcare improvement is when PhilHealth provided free medical treatment to all Filipino citizens with the expansion of its coverage to include consultations and lab tests. However, the country still struggles with unequal access to medical care with public healthcare varying from excellent in urban centers to poor in rural areas.
2022 healthcare in the Philippines continues to see itself battling the pandemic as the COVID-19 response is still going on. Despite the seeming fluctuation of the number of cases, public education on prevention became a staple as different establishments and institutions remind the public unceasingly on practicing and observing health protocols that it was normalized.
The pandemic had created awareness on having insurance to protect themselves from the unforeseen future that would hamper their finances. Life and healthcare insurance are becoming popular since 2020 and it continues to rise in 2022 as more Filipinos, especially the Millennial and Gen Z demographic, are more conscious of where their money should go and how they view self-care to survive. As a result, health insurance products that provide coverage for critical illnesses and infectious diseases and also hospital income benefit schemes were developed as noted by the Philippine Life Insurance Association.
Looking at these developments in healthcare in the Philippines in the first half of 2022, it projects a more promising future in healthcare as improvements in medical services and increasing awareness of self-care by the current generation of Filipinos. As long as these developments continue, we may see a better development as we enter the second half of the year.
