Outbreaks expose government’s incapacity to manage people’s health

More than three weeks since residents of Calamba and Los Banos, Laguna as well as in San Pablo City fell ill with typhoid fever, still, the government has not been able to determine the cause of the outbreak that affected more than 1,400 persons.

Identification of the cause and source of infection is a basic and crucial step in controlling diseases like salmonella typhi. Even if the Department of Health declared that the outbreak was caused by contaminated water found to have “low-chlorine” level,” the findings are not yet conclusive and do not point to who is responsible.

On the other hand, the government needs to recheck the efficiency of privatized water facilities as these also have a primary role in ensuring public safety in the water they distribute.

Community-based health programs who work closely with marginalized sectors would like to express grave concern about the government’s seeming lack of sense of urgency and decisiveness in times of massive disasters like epidemics.

Almost always, disastrous events expose the government’s incapacity to ensure people’s access to health services as shown in the scores of patients that cramped public hospitals and makeshift wards.

It is an unfortunate yet very notable fact that outbreaks such as these usually victimize the poorest populations of our society because it is they who are most vulnerable to these diseases.

Together with the entire community-based health program communities in the Philippines, CHD calls on the citizenry to be vigilant in asserting their right to basic health services from the local and national government. The people have every right to demand from the government concrete and do-able measures not only during epidemics but also in disease prevention and post-epidemic management in communities.