According to the Disease Control Priorities project of the World Health Organization (WHO), more than half of the deaths that occur in lower middle-income countries each year are from conditions that could be addressed by organized prehospital and facility-based emergency care, but the numbers could go higher in developing countries who are yet to achieve universal health care such as the Philippines, which has a particularly unique health situation – devolved and decentralized.
Emergency care systems for universal health coverage are essentially about ensuring timely care for the acutely ill and injured. For the Philippines where roads and highways are not the only problem for people to access health care, the need for an organized and efficient pre-hospital care system is both an urgent and crucial piece in the yet unachieved (and quite unimaginable) picture of universal health care. It is not only an additive to the health system, but an essential key to reduce morbidity and mortality in acute life-threatening conditions, especially for time-sensitive illnesses, as well as to reduce the overwhelming load channeled to the emergency medical services (EMS).
"Ambulansya de Paa" is a stark example of a systemic failure to provide such a key component of a basic national healthcare, and yet at the same time, a truly remarkable initiative of one person to meagerly but very courageously patch such a gap of the government so as to at least alleviate much or some pains and sufferings of the unjustly marginalized people of our country.