WHY THE LONG WAIT IN PUBLIC HOSPITALS?

WHY THE LONG WAIT IN PUBLIC HOSPITALS?

I watched a video about patients waiting to be admitted to a public hospital. It was about 3:00 a.m., and outside the hospital people lay on the sidewalks, already asleep while they waited for admission. How could something like that happen in our country?

I know the feeling— months ago, I found myself in the emergency room of a private hospital, waiting hours before a bed became available. If that’s the experience in a private hospital, how much worse must it be in a public one?

The Root of the Problem

We often hear: “long waiting times in public hospitals—because there aren’t enough beds.” And yes, beds are part of the issue. But I’m convinced the problem runs deeper: the lack of rooms. You can buy beds. But you cannot magically create hospital wings without spaces, infrastructure or rooms. So when hospitals say they have long queues, it may not just be beds—they may simply have nowhere to put new patients.

In fact, the Department of Health (DOH) has acknowledged the bed shortage: the average in the Philippines is about 0.5 beds per 1,000 people—far below the targeted 1.5 per 1,000. A think-tank study found 27 provinces with less than 0.5 beds per 1,000 people.

So yes, we need more beds—but more fundamentally, we need more rooms, wings, facilities to place those beds. That requires budget allocation, construction, design, planning.

Why Hasn’t the Government Responded More Vigorously?

Here’s where I ask the tough questions.

1. Budget trade-offs: Why hasn’t more budget gone into hospital room construction? There’s a recent news item: Risa Hontiveros urged that funds earmarked for flood-control projects be redirected to hospital beds and infrastructure, because public hospitals reportedly only have 28,153 beds though the requirement is 118,528. If this is true—why is the choice between flood control and health infrastructure even one of debate? We should be doing both—but perhaps the balance has skewed.
   
   

2. Structural inertia: Building classrooms seems almost simpler than building hospital rooms. Prefabricated materials, modular hospitals—they’re feasible. Yet why are so many hospitals still operating beyond capacity? The walk-in culture, lack of triage, manual systems also play a role.
   
   

3. Standards and accountability: I understand policies exist—there are supposed standards for beds per population and rooms. But what’s the timeline? If the DOH is targeting reducing ER wait times (12–24 hours) to under 4 hours, this implies large structural reform ahead. Shouldn’t the government set a concrete deadline—“By year X we will have built Y rooms/hospital wings”? Without deadlines, we must ask: where is the political will?
   
   

4. Resource allocation vs need: In a country prone to disasters, flooding, and climate shocks, we recognise the importance of flood-control projects. But is there proportionality in how we allocate funds between environment/infrastructure and health infrastructure? Because what’s the use of flood control if health systems collapse under strain?
   
   

What Can We Suggest?

Here are a few ideas:

• Modular hospital wings: Prefabricated or modular hospital units (rooms + beds) can be erected relatively quickly. This could be a short-term bridge while permanent structures are built.
  
  

• Decentralize more care: If tertiary public hospitals are overwhelmed, strengthen barangay health units, satellite clinics, even tele-medicine for non-critical cases—so fewer people arrive at the ER needing admission.
  
  

• Referral systems and triage: Improve how patients are managed—minor ailments should not clog emergency rooms. Encourage earlier care so that only those truly needing beds go to hospitals.
  
  

• Clear budget timelines: The DOH, Congress, and local governments should commit to realistic but firm milestones for increasing hospital room and bed capacity—e.g., “We will build X new rooms by 2027.”
  
  

• Transparency and tracking: Let us know how many rooms are added, where, which hospitals. Monitoring will build public pressure and accountability.
  
  

When I saw those people sleeping on the sidewalks at 3 a.m., I saw more than waiting—they were victims of a system stretched beyond its capacity. At some point, compassion and infrastructure must meet. Waiting hours (or days) for admission isn’t just an inconvenience—it’s a health risk, dignity lost, potential life cut short.

So yes—why the long wait? Because too many of our public hospitals are operating like bottlenecks in a pipeline that needs to be widened. Because beds alone are not enough when rooms are missing. Because the infrastructure investment hasn’t kept pace with our population, our disease burdens, our expectations.

And as citizens, we deserve better. We should ask not only for more beds—but for more rooms, more systems, and a more responsive healthcare infrastructure. We should expect a government that sees emergency rooms and public hospitals not as stop-gaps but as worthy pillars of a mature system.

Because health isn’t optional—it’s foundational. And when we build for health, we build for dignity, for justice, for a country where no one sleeps on a sidewalk waiting for care.

Ramon Ike V. Seneres, www.facebook.com/ike.seneres

iseneres@yahoo.com, senseneres.blogspot.com 09088877292/04-10-2026