NAME: Maria Erica Jan S.

Miranda COURSE: Masters of Arts in Nursing (Nursing Administration)

The Impact of COVID-19 to our Healthcare System

Health care system in the Philippines was never considered neither outstanding nor mediocre.
Even before the pandemic, a lot of hospitals in the country are experiencing lack of staffs, insufficient
facilities and budget issues. As Covid-19 strikes the nation, the healthcare system experience much
more difficulties. How did the pandemic really affect our health care system?

As Covid-19 pandemic rages across the country, it brought unprecedented strain on hospitals,
from a shortage of testing and medical supplies to issues in access among rural and underserved
populations. As we all know, the Philippines is a developing country. Most of our hospital facilities are not
accredited as tertiary and most of the Tertiary Hospitals with quality equipments and services are located
in NCR. The pandemic situation challenges all level hospitals all over the country on how they handle the
situation. The situation also evidently increases the health care demand. A lot of hospitals had sacrifice
other wards to cater as many Covid-19 cases as possible. Some large hospitals even announced that
they already reached their maximum bed capacity. This is really alarming since a lot of hospitals are
experiencing shortage of healthcare workers. In other words, workloads for healthcare providers are
increased due to the increase in demand yet little manpower. In that sense, delivery and quality of care is
definitely affected as well. In addition, during the first phase of the pandemic, outpatient clinics were
closed and elective surgeries and admissions are suspended, causing delayed delivery of care to
patients.

The Philippines, with its relatively ill-equipped health system, was really overwhelmed with the
surge of this pandemic. A shortage of hospital beds in regular as well as intensive care units, mechanical
ventilators and masks are only some of the challenges our healthcare system is facing. And let’s not
forget the incompetence of the government to deploy mass testing especially for frontline workers.

Sadly, the reality is that I could go on and narrate how much this pandemic affected our
healthcare system. But all of that would just lead to the conclusion that Philippines is definitely not ready
for this pandemic. Our healthcare system was already not the best to begin with, and this pandemic has
pushed it more to the bottom.

Other than that, be reminded that the pandemic also changed the way we live. Unfortunate as it is
but it’s like what they say, “We are now living in fear”. The near future is really uncertain. But put in mind
that we all have the same enemy, the virus. In my opinion, it’s better to stop blaming anyone and just
contribute to overcoming this challenge by staying at home if possible, obeying the guidelines when
going outside and most importantly, pray that this all ends as soon as possible.