Is Healthcare Still a Right or Just a Privilege?: Analyzing the Perceptions of Healthcare Workers Towards the Impact of Neoliberal Practices on the Inequity in Healthcare Among Filipinos

• Main Authors: Banog, Jeanne Micah B., Gacosta, Jarah Suzanne A., Gomez, Dominic Joel M., Ramos, Adriel Pauline D.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Subjects: public health; neoliberalism; healthcare; health workers; perception; Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/conf_shsrescon/2022/paper_spl/3
• Institution: De La Salle University

It is given that there is a right to health, health inequities are still evident among people with different statuses than the norm (Hui et al., 2020) despite the promotion of a universal right to health by the WHO. Neoliberalism, as a health reform may exist within the health sector but in turn may cause a weakening of the public health sector. The goal of the study is to examine the practices that healthcare workers do as a result of neoliberalism in the workplace which can affect the state of the Philippines' public health, and inevitably take away the right for all Filipinos to access equal and proper health. A phenomenological research design was utilized and gathered data through in-depth interviews with healthcare professionals from a selected tertiary care public hospital. To select respondents, purposive sampling was used and an appropriate sampling criteria to maximize the different health professional roles in the health system. It was found that there is an available public healthcare system but it was inefficient and inaccessible to the majority. Social status influences one’s access to healthcare which shows the prevalence of neoliberalism in the public healthcare system. Improper regulation of neoliberalism is among the many reasons for healthcare inequity and when used in the right way by addressing issues in each of the six building blocks of public health, it may drive out these structural inequities with which further studies can focus on.