PPP projects for health care still lacking in PHL

THE Philippines has a huge potential to undertake health-related Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Projects but the country has yet to embrace this potential having only one full-blown PPP in the health sector. PPP Center Executive Director Cosette Canilao said that currently, the government only has one PPP project in the health sector which is the P5.7-billion Modernization of the Philippine Orthopedic project. Canilao said the Department of Health (DOH) recently decided to undertake the P453-million Vaccine Self-Sufficiency Project through the regular procurement system rather than via PPP. She said that while the DOH has expressed interest in proposing a PPP for digital cancer centers, this PPP may not be able to maximize the potential of a full-blown PPP project. "The [DOH] said something about digital cancer centers but again they’re thinking of the structures. They will build the structure but it seems it will not be a pure PPP, its not a high-value PPP. It seems it will just be a public-private interaction. It’s not a real PPP [because it will be done through a] service agreement and I dont think you’re harnessing the real power of PPPs through that,” Canilao said. In a presentation at the Health Care for All forum on Tuesday, Philippine Institute for Development Studies Consultant Josephine Anne Lucero said PPPs is a strategy that will help attain Universal Health Coverage in the country.