RH Bill, Access to Healthcare Urgent as Women's Healthcare Spending Drops with Poverty

Gabriela Women’s Party Representative Luz Ilagan, along with hundreds of RH warriors called for the immediate passage of the Reproductive Health Bill at the House of Representatives. “With every single day that the RH Bill is delayed, 11 mothers die due to complications which could have easily been avoided if access to healthcare is ensured.”

“Congress is wasting taxpayers’ money by dillydallying on the RH Bill. Many of the issues currently being raised in plenary deliberations have been discussed and exhausted. Women cannot wait one day more and we cannot allow the RH bill to stay in the freezer while women and their children continue to suffer and die every day due the lack of basic maternal and reproductive health care services.”

The Gabriela solon also said that providing accessible health care services to Filipino families becomes urgent and necessary as healthcare further drops in family spending priorities amid worsening hunger and poverty.

“Filipino families will tend to spend less on healthcare especially as rising costs of food and utilities eat up more of the budget. Ilagan cites survey reports released by the Social Weather Stations last week which indicate that 52 percent or some 10.4 million Filipino households considered themselves "mahirap" or poor. This is a 3 percent increase from survey results conducted in June when the self- rated poverty was only at 49 percent or equivalent to 9.8 million households.

“With at least 10.4 million Filipino households now classifying themselves as poor, we can expect consumer spending for health to go down and health care becoming more and more of a luxury than a necessity for families. And as mothers tend to consider their health less of a priority over that of their children’s needs, women will continue to bear the heavier burden with the government’s continued neglect of healthcare.”