MBC urges gov’t to spend more to solve health crisis

Two years into the devastating pandemic, the Makati Business Club (MBC) has urged the government to spend more to address the health crisis, from better public transportation and COVID-19 booster shots for health-care workers, to a real-time information system for hospital bed vacancies— all of which, it said, will still cost less than lockdowns.

The MBC, composed of senior executives in some of the largest corporations in the country, issued a COVID-19 Discussion Paper on Tuesday, a comprehensive document that suggested a multi-pronged approach that should be done together with an improved vaccination campaign.

In essence, the business group urged policymakers to go back to the basics of responding to the pandemic, while rethinking how the country’s response could be better this time around.

It suggested three main strategies: improve the capacity of the health-care system to detect and treat COVID-19 cases; limit reopening strategies to areas with high vaccination rates by using a “clear [and] transparent formula;” as well as give better and tangible support to the country’s health-care workers.

“While vaccination is the main strategy, it needs to be part of a multi-pronged approach. The spending required for these measures is probably less than the cost of lockdowns,” MBC said in its discussion paper, a copy of which was shared with the media on Tuesday.

The business group also voiced its support for the country’s beleaguered healthcare workers.

“From the start, we have all acknowledged that health-care workers are the No. 1 front-liners in the battle against COVID. We continue to thank them for their service, suffering, and sacrifice. It is therefore disturbing that hospitals and health-care workers themselves say they are not getting money that is due to them or was promised to them,” the MBC said.

“We are very concerned about the numerous resignations of health-care workers due to risks, low pay, and poor conditions. We urge the government to address this with funding that reflects the healthcare workers’ essential role in fighting COVID and other conditions. We do not believe this can or should be addressed by restricting their departure for other countries,” MBC added.

The paper, which is also available on MBC’s official website, was also released at a time when the Duterte administration is experimenting with granular lockdowns and an alert level system. The MBC said the government should be up front about whether the experiment is actually working.

“As to reopening with ‘granular lockdowns,’ the [Metro Manila] pilot program should reveal whether the granular lockdowns can work or if they need rethinking,” the MBC said. INQ