Santiago, Jasper A.

BSE-3B

REFLECTION PAPER

ASEAN DATA SCIENCE EXPLORERS (ADSE) National Finals held on September 2, 2020, Nueva
Ecija University of Science and Technology or NEUST is one of the schools in the Philippines which
included to the finals together with some prestigious university in the country. 6 students meet the
qualification for the finals and they are from College of Education taking up Bachelor of Secondary
Education major in Science.

I want to emphasize the bravery of 2 students from said university, Gracely Austria and Frances
Mavelaine Santos for giving us information about the alarming issue in our country today regarding to
the health issue and the problem about the health workers and they what we call the main front liners
in this crisis. Their topic talks about the “Globalization for Health.” They say that our world today
specifically in ASEAN region are now lacking of doctors and nurses, one of the main reasons is failed
education. Only 30-40% of medical graduates were passed the board exam and that’s very alarming in
this time of crisis. They also include that the ideal doctor-patient ration should 1:1000 or 1 doctor in
every 1000 patients. Singapore is leading when it comes to reaching the standards of doctors. In their
country 1 doctor can treat 435 patients which is good it is above average according to 1:1000 ration.
They also presented that Indonesia and Philippines which are now the 2 highest and leading country in
terms of the positive cases of COVID-19, presenters say that it is because of lack of doctors in these2
countries. Indonesia has 1 doctor for every 2,500 patients while in our country which is the Philippines
has 1 doctor in every 1,667 patients. I am so shocked about the information because I realized that all of
the doctors and nurses are now tired of working in a hospital and they need to rest for a while and that
is what they wanted as I watched it in the news, they recommending to the Government to implement
ECQ for 2 weeks for them to be rested for a while.

Shortage of doctors affect the mortality rate of every countries. These two students recommend
that our country should improve its Health Education to begin with Senior High School to College. Add
more subjects in line with health education in SHS and give scholarship to those students having
financial problems in life who want to take a course in Medicine. For me, these recommendations
actually one of the important things to consider by our Government for making more efficient and hard-
working doctors and nurses.

According to one of the board of judges, they should include the incentives like hazard pays of
the health workers. We all know that because of lack of incentives and low salaries for doctors and
nurses, they tend to leave the country. And it really hurts for me because now we are needed them the
most in this pandemic. But we can never blame them because they did that because of the needs of
their family.
 To these two students who took that opportunity to send their message in our society today, I
would say that I am proud of them and I hope their recommendations will hear by the Government to
put it in their plan for the betterment of our country.