Current health expenditure per capita Philippines 2014-2021

The current health expenditure in the Philippines amounted to nearly 10 thousand Philippine pesos per capita in 2020. In the same year, the bulk of these expenditure was spent on hospitals followed by pharmacies.

 Increasing current health expenditures

The country’s health spending or current health expenditures had been increasing in the past seven years, valued at about 896 billion Philippine pesos in 2020. Increased healthcare spending was particularly noted in that year when the COVID-19 pandemic hit as Filipinos purchased more essential health products and medicines to better protect themselves from the virus.

Factors contributing to increased health spending

In addition to the coronavirus pandemic, high inflation rates in the Philippines, especially in 2018, fueled increasing prices of medicines and other pharmaceutical goods. To lower the prices of medicines, the government had been encouraging foreign pharmaceutical firms to establish facilities in the Philippines to increase local production. In recent years, discussions were being made between pharmaceutical firms in India, which was the leading source of pharmaceutical imports to the country.