Integrated Clinical Clerkship in Emergency Medicine AY 2021- 2022

We might think of the hospital as the first facilitator of healthcare in a community, but the reality is that these are often the last line of care a patient will interact with in seeking treatment. Everything from the community where they reside to the roads they use to reach the town proper have their place in affecting how one accesses care. As we saw in the documentary, treatment was already being started in their village even without a doctor or a place nearby to get medicine. Despite their efforts, the community could only care for their sick so much, but without access to basic goods like medicines and sufficient meat, regaining full health would be very difficult. By the time they make the rough journey to the barangay health office 4 hours away, the condition of the patient has seriously deteriorated. The consequences would be even more pronounced in emergency situations when you cannot afford 4 hours of travel to get help. This is why a true universal healthcare approach would focus not only on strengthening tertiary care hospitals, but improving the environments of the communities themselves and making healthcare more readily available to the those in the farthest reaches of our country.