Integrated Clinical Clerkship in Emergency Medicine AY 2021- 2022

As seen in the documentary, Ambulansyang de Paa, pre-hospital care plays a very important role in addressing acute and urgent needs of individuals. Pre-hospital care should have been the first contact of patients with acute life-threatening conditions to the health system and that this should be readily accessible and available to cater to the most immediate needs of a patient. Sadly, however, our country still has not been able to establish an efficient pre-hospital care system. There is still a tendency for people to go directly tertiary or specialty hospitals for their consults, bypassing lower-level health facilities. However, this is not only bound to the patient’s preference but also by their access to the services available nearby. Just as emphasized in the documentary, unavailability of services in the GIDA communities remain to be an issue. There are still people who die without seeing a doctor and there are also people who die because their condition became so severe and yet had only seen a doctor after years of enduring their disease. A lot of lives could have been saved if only there is a proper pre-hospital care. Indeed, admissions to higher level hospitals could have been lessened if the needs of the people would already be catered within their communities. This would save travel time, resources for transportation, more procedures and medications, and the needed manpower and equipment in the receiving higher level hospital. Consequently, this could also allow re-allocation of resources to focus more on public health which will also include the improvement of the service delivery network, provision of local health units with functioning equipment and trained manpower and provision of education to promote health, prolong life and prevent diseases.