I received a text message from my best friend informing me about the death of one of our friends who died due to a motorcycle crash. Unfortunately, the accident happened somewhere where there aren't much people around. Our friend wasn't able to receive medical care at once resulting to his death. The doctor declared "dead on arrival" on his record. My friend suffered from what they call traumatic brain injury. Medical experts said that he could have had a good chance to survive if he was only rushed to the hospital at once. It was a very heartbreaking news.

According to statistics, 50% of the patients who have gone through vehicular (may it be motorcycle, truck, bicycle, car, etc) accidents will end up having brain injury in which some of the cases result to death. Those patients who are able to survive brain trauma will have to undergo necessary health/hospital care and rehabilitation. Unfortunately, such needs involve money, time and patience. It is also important to know whether the patient's insurance will take care of his/her bills during the entire process or not. In our country (the Philippines) there are many who aren't insured and if they are, there are times when the health system isn't enough to match every brain injury patient's health requirements. Rich people usually fly their patients to countries such as the US or the UK where proper medical care can be achieved. However, a lot can not afford such a process which is a sad truth.

It is my third day of vacation here in my home country and I can deeply feel the poverty pinching my heart. I just hope that our new leaders after the upcoming May election will somehow look into improving the health care system of the country. I am not expecting a sudden total change of events but at least an improvement will definitely make a huge difference.