SENATOR Juan Edgardo ‘Sonny’ Angara has encouraged more State Universities and Colleges to offer medical courses so that students who want to pursue a career in medicine can do so wherever they are located.

Only nine SUCs offer medical degrees — University of Northern Philippines, Mariano Marcos State University, University of the Philippines- Leyte, Cagayan State University, Mindanao State University- General Santos, Bicol University, West Visayas State University,  Mindanao State University- Marawi, and University of the Philippines- Manila.

On the other hand, there are 45 SUCs that offer nursing courses.

The senator pointed out that the nine SUCs with medical degrees are located in eight regions, posing a major hindrance to the students who do not reside in these regions who want to pursue a medical degree.

“SUCs, as they are funded by the national government and are deemed the most accessible higher educational institution to the general public, should take up the cudgels of ensuring that their own regions would have enough medical manpower to be ready for existing and emerging health services needs of the country,” Angara said.

He filed Senate Resolution 528 which seeks to look into the financial requirement needed to establish medical schools in every region.

Angara also filed a separate resolution to look into the financial requirement to achieve the desired ratio of healthcare workers to the population.

In filing Senate Resolution 529, Angara said that the inquiry aims to ensure that all practicing healthcare workers in the country will be employed, utilized and compensated competitively.

“As we further improve our healthcare system especially with the soon-to-be fully implemented Universal Health Care Law, there is an urgent need for us to utilize what many consider to be one of our best resource—our healthcare workers, hence it is only vital that the government examine how we can fully utilize and appreciate their value to the country by first determining the needed cost to provide a competitive compensation to these healthcare workers in the long run,” the senator said.

He also batted for the establishment of hospitals within SUCs to help fortify the country’s health system.

“The reality that six out of 10 Filipinos die without seeing a medical professional is very alarming. After seeing the data, it explains why our healthcare system was overwhelmed when we were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Angara said in filing Senate Bill 1850 or the Healthcare Facility Augmentation Act.

“We need to strengthen our healthcare system and two of the initial steps that we can take is to produce more doctors and nurses and to increase the number of hospitals that will serve our people,” he added.