The Philippines is an archipelagic country consisting of thousands of islands with some towns/cities having very low doctor allocation (or sometimes even none) to a given set of patients. A lot of towns in the Philippines are very distant from the heart of society, they are known as geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (as shown in the documentary). Accessibility of health services (including transport to and fro the health facility) has already been a longstanding problem to a lot of Filipinos and many are dying from common, treatable, and preventable medical conditions. This is a result of a lot of factors mainly from poor public health promotion, education, and administration since the Philippine healthcare system today looks like it focuses more on the curative aspect of medicine as opposed to preventive care.
The concept of pre-hospital care refers to the provision of essential and emergent medical services before/during transport to healthcare facilities. This aims to provide measures to resuscitate and stabilize the patients and even provide initial life-saving treatment to prevent further complications while definitive treatment at the healthcare facility is not yet administered. In the end, it aims to reduce the mortalities arising from this time interval which leads to better treatment outcomes once the patient receives the definitive treatment. Pre-hospital care services, when made accessible to every barrio in the Philippines, can somehow make healthcare more accessible since it also includes the immediate transport of the patient towards the nearest health facility. If the nearest health facility is far and transport will be delayed, at least initial/emergent measures shall be done to prevent deterioration of the patient.
It is sad to admit that even in the aspect of pre-hospital care, not all filipinos are able to have pre-hospital care prior/during transfer to the nearest health facility due to a multitude of reasons some of which include: maldistribution of healthcare professionals in the country, the lack of focus in Public health and preventive care, mis-allocation of resources, lack of intersectoral collaboration, and poor governance. Therefore, future health policies should center on the core problems of the current health system and aim to address the roots as well as take into consideration the social determinants of health which play a big role on why health inequities exist.