As a member of Philippine Health Insurance Corp , patient Maria was getting free dialysis treatment at a city centre in Quezon, Philippines.
The state-owned corporation manages the health insurance of public and private employees and their dependants, as well as poor beneficiaries. Mr Roberto told reporters that he and fellow former employee Liezel Santos went directly to the PhilHealth office in January to follow up on the status of their complaints about WellMed, but the visit was futile.
But because her PhilHealth member record did not reflect any payment made by her hiring agency, her family had to shell out around 12,000 pesos for the hospital fees. The case files have been passed on to five PhilHealth presidents, illustrating the bureaucratic red tape plaguing PhilHealth's inquiries into irregularities, he added.
A 2016 study by the state University of the Philippines found that six out of 10 Filipinos die without ever seeing doctors. The country's doctor-patient ratio is 1:33,000, a far cry from other countries, which have an ideal ratio of 1:1,000.