At the height of the initial Covid outbreak in March last year, Leilani Medel, a 41-year-old mum, posted a picture of herself and her 13-year-old daughter Carmina on her Facebook page with the caption: ‘Don’t ask me to stay home, I’m a nurse! We fight when others can’t any more.’
Leilani, who lived in Bridgend, South Wales, was born in the Philippines and had worked in NHS hospitals and care homes for the past ten years.
She was described by colleagues as ‘the kindest of souls’ a ‘passionate’ nurse who would do anything for her patients.
Three weeks after that Facebook post, the fit and active young mother was dead.
Published April 6, 2021, 11:42 AM
Senator Christopher “Bong” Go on Tuesday, April 6, appealed to the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to scale up its COVID-19 response by providing expanded protection against medical costs, particularly for families suffering financial strains due to the pandemic.
“As the primary health insurance provider of millions of Filipinos, it is important that PhilHealth adapts to the current challenges the country is facing today,” Go said in a statement.
“For faster recovery, PhilHealth should be more proactive by anticipating the needs of Filipinos even before they avail treatment and expand the coverage of its health insurance schemes accordingly,” he added.
One e-wallet provider, Ant-driven GCash, clocked in $20 billion dollars worth of deals
1 of 16 TRANSITION TO DIGITAL CASH: GCash, the top e-wallet in the Philippines, is quietly ushering in a transition towards digital payments. Even in rural areas, paying for groceries and medicines via GCash, or its main rival PayMaya, has increasingly become more common. With the pandemic, it has ushered in a spike in cashless, contactless and fast transactions to the tune of at least Php1 trillion ($20 billion) in 2020. Image Credit: Jay Hilotin / Gulf News
2 of 16 SPIKE IN CASH-LESS TRANSACTIONS: Despite the low credit card penetration rate, or perhaps because of it, digital payments are spiking in the Philippines, helped in some ways by the coronavirus pandemic.