World Patient Safety Day placed the spotlight this year on a challenge particularly relevant to the Philippines. Observed on Sept. 17, the focus of this important event is to ensure safe care for people living with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that NCDs account for 68% of deaths in the Philippines, based on its latest available country data. Cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases impose an enormous burden not only because of the lives they claim, but also because many require continuous care and treatment over years or even decades.
This makes patient safety especially important. Globally, one in 10 patients experiences harm during healthcare, and around half of this harm is considered preventable. People living with NCDs face particular risks because the long-term and complex nature of their conditions means repeated interaction with health systems.
For someone living with hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, or cancer, patient safety is therefore not limited to avoiding errors during hospitalization. Risks can arise at virtually every stage of the care journey, from prevention and screening, diagnosis, treatment, long-term monitoring, self-care, rehabilitation, and up to palliative care.
Harm can result from delayed or incorrect diagnosis, medication errors, healthcare-associated infections, or unsafe use of medical devices. Fragmented and poorly coordinated care can add to these risks, particularly when patients move between primary-care physicians, specialists, hospitals, laboratories and pharmacies, or when they are taking several medicines simultaneously. Poverty, limited health literacy, stigma, and discrimination can further affect access to safe care.
This is why the theme of World Patient Safety Day 2026, “Safe care for noncommunicable diseases,” and its theme, “Safe care for life!” are so appropriate. WHO is calling for stronger primary healthcare-oriented systems capable of delivering safe care across the entire NCD continuum, supported by a trained health workforce and better coordination among healthcare providers.
Patients themselves must also be partners in making care safer. People living with NCDs need to understand their condition, know what medicines they are taking and how to take them correctly, report adverse effects, ask questions when instructions are unclear, and participate meaningfully in decisions about their treatment.
Health literacy and patient engagement become especially important because, throughout years of NCD treatment, healthcare providers and facilities may change. The patient is often the one constant across the entire care journey. Listening to the lived experience of patients can also help health practitioners and policymakers identify risks that may otherwise go unnoticed and develop practical solutions to address them.
The Philippines has already helped advance the global patient safety agenda. In April 2025, delegates from 64 countries, including experts from the academe, professional and international organizations, as well as patients and their representatives, gathered in Manila for the 7th Global Ministerial Summit on Patient Safety. Organized by the Department of Health (DoH) and co-sponsored by WHO, the summit addressed implementation gaps identified in the first Global Patient Safety Report 2024.
The summit culminated in the Mandaluyong Declaration, which called for renewed urgency in implementing the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021-2030 through partnerships, learning and innovation, as well as greater accountability through data and monitoring. Importantly, it called for patient safety to become a foundational pillar of resilient, people-centered, and equitable health systems.
The country also has a longstanding policy framework for patient safety, beginning with the DoH National Policy on Patient Safety and strengthened by subsequent policies promoting a culture of safety in healthcare facilities. These complement the Universal Health Care Act’s broader objective of ensuring that Filipinos receive accessible and quality healthcare.
The challenge now is to translate these policies and global commitments into consistently safe care wherever patients receive it. That requires integrated primary care, timely and accurate diagnosis, medication safety, well-trained healthcare professionals, effective information and monitoring systems, and better communication and coordination across levels of care.
The innovative pharmaceutical industry also has an important responsibility throughout the medicine lifecycle. We ensure ethical clinical research and rigorous quality standards; provide accurate product information; pharmacovigilance; adverse-event reporting; and continued monitoring of the safety of medicines once they are used by patients.
At the Manila summit, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reminded delegates that patient safety must be a non-negotiable priority across health systems, at every level of care, in every community and regardless of income.
For millions of Filipinos living with NCDs, that commitment must extend throughout their lives. Safe care is a shared responsibility of government, healthcare professionals, health facilities, the pharmaceutical industry, patients, families, and communities. Preventing avoidable harm at every stage of the NCD journey is essential not only to preserving life, but also to ensuring that people can live longer, healthier and better lives.
Teodoro B. Padilla is the executive director of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines, which represents the biopharmaceutical medicines and vaccines industry in the country. Its members are at the forefront of developing, investing and delivering innovative medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics for Filipinos to live healthier and more productive lives.
Making NCD care safer for life
Philippines Pandemic
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