28 May International Day of Action for Women’s Health 2023
Health is a fundamental human right recognized and protected by constitutions all over the world. However, access to healthcare services is not always available to all people, leaving significant segments of the populace more vulnerable than others. In the Philippines especially, it is often said that many people are one hospital confinement away from losing all their money.
In a country where the prices of essential goods and services steadily rise while wages remain stagnant, the continued mismanagement of our national funds and policy making further widens the gap of inequality, and it is none more palpable than in the state Philippines’ healthcare system.
The recent Universal Periodic Review by the UN Human Rights Council found many violations of the people’s Right to Health, including increased privatization of healthcare services, amounting to over two-thirds of our nation’s medical facilities being privatized, which lead to a 67% increase in hospital confinement costs in private facilities, and 57% in public facilities.
This profit-oriented healthcare system has proven to be detrimental to Filipinos, however when paired with a draconian and sexist approach to policy making, the forlorn state of healthcare can prove twice as harmful, if not outright lethal, for women and children in the Philippines.
The country’s maternal mortality rate has gone up to 468 deaths in 2022, compared to 425 in 2021. The Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act, one of the country’s foremost vanguards of contraception and maternal care, has seen a sharp decrease in the funding of its implementation, going from P2.5 billion in 2013, to just P842 million in 2022.
The average daily number of newly-diagnosed HIV cases also saw an increase, going from 9 daily in 2012 to 47 in 2022. Meanwhile, only 26% of women living with HIV receive antiretroviral treatment.
Protection against gender-based discrimination which just as much pose a threat to the health and safety of women, children, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community, also remain sorely lacking – the SOGIE Bill has yet to be passed into law, cases of violence against women are over 11,300 in January of 2023 alone.
This is the grim reality Filipinos wake up to every day. However, it is a reality we can reject, fight against, and change.
For this year’s International Day of Action for Women’s Health, the Philippine Safe Abortion Advocacy Network wishes to emphasize and remind everyone that healthcare is a fundamental human right. Unreasonable, unaffordable costs of medical services, as well as backwards legislation like the Philippines’ criminalization of abortion and its unjust punitive measures against healthcare workers, and women and girls, are thus all clear violations of our fundamental human rights.
PINSAN is therefore calling upon all its partners and allies to tirelessly and continually educate, campaign, and fight together to assert healthcare rights, especially those of women whose rights are routinely disproportionately neglected and outright ignored.
Let us all stand firm on our beliefs and amplify our calls for inclusive healthcare! And healthcare that does not deem abortion a criminal offense but a human right! Healthcare rights are human rights! Sign the petition below to express your solidarity and make our voices be heard!
https://change.org/decriminalizeabortionph
#DecriminalizeAbortionNow
#AbortionIsHealthcare
#WomensHealthMatters
#SRHR4All
