By EJ Roque/Philippine News Agency
MANILA — President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Tuesday night cited the crucial role of health workers in ensuring the delivery of services to the poorest people, especially those in far-flung areas.
“The health workers have to penetrate the mountains and in areas there I said, where blight and squalor abound. The problem bogs down along the way to the intended beneficiaries. It’s either government people are indolent, not all, or they just really don’t bother just to do their work with a little bit of patriotism,” Duterte said during his speech at the 7th Union Asia Pacific Regional Conference held in Pasay City.
Health workers, he said, should heed the call of duty even beyond office hours.
“Maybe, after 5 o’clock they go home because that’s it. And I saw it in other countries. At the stroke of 5, they just drop everything and this is a kind of attitude that really is a monkey wrench in the running of government machinery,” he said.
The President particularly cited tuberculosis (TB) as a disease that needs to be addressed. He said the poor do not have money to spend to be cured of the disease.
“We need to cure TB and other diseases. Men in government should have free access to every place here without being molested, disturbed, unbridled by any worry so that the purpose for which we are here can be realized,” he said.
“TB would need a lot of care, antibiotics, periodic injections and all that,” he added.
The Union Asia Pacific Regional Conference is a non-government endeavor consisting of 13 heritage countries, two organizational members, and individual members.
Its primary goal is to assist in the progressive reduction of ill-health and death, and the adverse social and economic impact of tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases and their eventual elimination in the Asia-Pacific region.
The conference, which carries the theme “Unity in Diversity: One Against Tuberculosis and Other Lung Diseases”, will run until April 26.
It features a variety of world-class informative talks regarding tuberculosis and other respiratory-related diseases.
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