Cheaper Medicines Bill

Everytime I call my mother and ask her about her health, she would complain to me not because she suffers from anything, but because of the cost of her medcines for hypertension, asthma, hypothyroidism and elevated cholesterol levels. All in all she spends 300 pesos a day for medicines only. That amounts to 9,000 pesos a month. She once resulted to taking them every other day just to save money until I found out about it because her blood pressure was not controlled after two months of medication. Since then I made it a point to check on her and count her medicines when I visit. I make sure that she has the exact number of tablets so she wont crimp on taking them.

With the cheaper medicines bill, my mother said its about time that such law is passed. But I doubt if the cost of her midicines will change since all her medicines have no generic counterparts. With all the medical conditions she has with their side effects being balanced out by the other, the danger of passing the decision of which drug to take to the user becomes a recipe for disaster.

Is this the real answer to the health problem of the country o pampapogi na naman ba ito? I work in a government hospital. I see indigent patients who cannot afford even the cheapest available medicine like a one peso paracetamol. Patients who cannot afford an intravenous set and fluids for hydration that would cost around one hundred fifty pesos. Government hospitals run on empty. Personnel make do of what is available and resign helplessly as they lose their patient because they cannot do anything else.

The Philippine government's budget for health is one of the lowest in the entire world. Government hospitals do not have provisions for free medicines. Only a small portion of the population has health insurance that do not cover for catastrophic cases.

Health has never been a primary concern of the Philippine government. It only looks upon it on outbreaks where endless witch hunts are conducted by the media to find faults on almost all personnel.

The congress has not spared the health sector. In fact it is its favorite scapegoat when they want to make papogi. Time and again it issues punitive laws that does not have any logic enough to look at the actual situation of the country's health delivery system.

Take for one, government hospitals cannot add personnel unless congress makes a plantilia or opens a position for a new doctor or nurse. A ward for sixty patients is usually manned by one doctor, one nurse and one midwife. And yet congress occupies itself with bills that seems self serving to its constituents, who are owners of generic drug distributorships or those being lobbied by multinational companies.

The honorable congressmen argues that the same brand manufactured in countries like India and Thailand cost a hundred times cheaper that the ones here in the Philippines. Point well taken. I want to know why? Is it because of the tariff paid by these companies to the government? Is it because of the cost of advertising? Is it because of the added cost of doctors junkets?

The innovative vaccine prevenar costs the company wyeth P320 to manufacture. Before it was marketed in the Philippines, the company already recovered all its overhead for research from marketing in first workd countries. Here, it is marketed to the consumer between 5000 to 6000. The difference from hundreds to thousands in cost benefits the manufacturer, the distributor, the doctors and most of all the government. With all the taxes the manufacturer, the distributor and the doctors have to pay, the government gets half of that final price.

I dream of a time when I dont have to consider cost when I am treating a patient. I dream of a time when I dont have to worry if I get paid or not, but rather enjoy the beautiful profession of healing. But that is just a dream here in the Philippines. Here you don't just heal, you become a counsellor, a social worker, a philantrophist, a charity foundation donor. And most of all a scapegoat for a governments inadequacies.

I look at the receipt after buying my mother's months worth of medicine. I cringed at the cost. There was VAT. I paid 900 pesos to the government for keeping my mother healthy. What do I get in return from the government? A bill prohibiting me from using experience and what I have learned in treating my patients.