I recently had the pleasure of representing Heal Venture Lab at the internal workshop on PPP by Department of Health (Philippines) at Baguio City. We would like to thank UnderSecretary of Health Francie Laxamana as well as the DOH team for inviting us to discuss how we can promote more public and private sector collaboration.
Some key takeaways
1) Local government and regional directors are keen to engage the private sector to help address their challenges, need to understand better how the PPP, investment and private sector partnership works
2) The Philippines is behind in terms of healthcare PPP compared to the neighbors. Common models here are BOT but predominantly product distributors doing placement models for consumable fees. BGH is one of new PPP projects by Philippines govt
3) There needs to be more opportunities and connecting platforms to bridge the govt health officials and private sectors, understand each other’s working culture and identify the common ground, and at the end of the day everyone is doing their job and sometimes these career roles are interchangeable
4) Element of corruption is inherent in PPP especially the Philippines but it was good to have the mayor of Baguio come to address the white elephant. The Gen Zs of DOH think differently from their predecessors and understand better to think for the common good. Also they understand better that it’s difficult to attract credible investors and private sector partners if corruption is involved
5) Both the private sector and public sector need a one stop shop to help them how to navigate. PPP center https://ppp.gov.ph/ plays that role
6) It’s important for public servants in the Philippines to understand that they are not competing with the private sector or other public sector officials. Real competitions are domestic industries that compete (tobacco, even e-commerce) with healthcare directly or for funding as well as countries abroad for medical tourism or FDI
7) No matter which side of stakeholder you represent, the common denominator is to promote healthcare access and affordability for the country and to complete successful projects for the country and to successfully roll out UHC for the Philippines
Regardless of stakeholder, the common goal is to promote healthcare access and affordability and successfully roll out UHC for the Philippines. hashtag#HealthcarePPP hashtag#PublicPrivatePartnership hashtag#UHC”
