While the national government’s move to build infrastructure and invest in machines to treat cancer is appreciated, experts on Monday, Feb. 27, underscored that a good and effective healthcare system has sufficient manpower who are geared with appropriate skills to do the job.
“The [number of] oncologists all over the Philippines is around 300. 300 only, that’s for the whole Philippines, and admittedly most of them are here in Metro Manila,” said Samala, noting that it takes cumulative efforts from various medical specialists to thoroughly look into the disease.“The funding mostly goes to building infrastructure.
Not only that, the experts also urged the Philippine government to decentralize all cancer-related efforts and equally distribute it all over the country.