Wednesday, May 28, 2008 Gov’t to sell ‘cheaper’ medicines
THE government will be challenging private hospitals to lower the prices of medicines they sell when President Gloria Arroyo, the Department of Health (DOH), and the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) launches the P100 Project in 100 identified local government hospitals nationwide within the next 100 days.
Under the program, public hospitals will be offering complete treatment in the form of “packages” for certain diseases at a cost of P100 or less.
There will be 27 packages, which are all generic drugs, tested and proven by the Bureau of Food and Drugs.
For instance, a patient who needs to take Amoxicillin for seven days will be able to buy the complete prescription from a government hospital for only P70.
DOH Undersecretary Alexander Padilla said that this project was inspired by the reality that most people tend to buy branded medicines.
Resistance
“But they can’t afford them. What they do, they don’t buy the complete prescription or buy half of the prescription at a later time. If they do that, they are not cured or they think they are cured when actually, they only develop resistance to drugs,” he said in an earlier interview with reporters.
Padilla was a guest speaker in the 4th Drugstores Association of the Philippines (DSAP) VisMin drugstore business conference last week.
He explained that the P100 Project is targeted to help poor individuals with common diseases such as diarrhea, ulcer,
hypertension, high cholesterol and uric acid levels, among others.
Each package has a mark-up profit for the public hospital and the PITC.
Not receptive
Padilla admitted that government hospitals were initially not receptive of the social service.
“We (talked) to 72 DOH hospitals and showed to them that it is to their advantage. They don’t need (capital) for this. We will be giving to the hospitals the P100 million worth of medicines. All they have to do is sell the medicines in packages. For a certain package, for example, they could earn some P8.50. From there, they will be able to develop a revolving fund,” he
explained.
With these cheap packages to be introduced within the next few months, Padilla foresees private hospitals either eventually taking part in the project or lowering the prices of their drugs.
“Through P100 Project, public hospitals will be competing with these private hospitals as far as prices are concerned.
Philhealth will be instrumental in this program. While reimbursements of drugs in a private hospital are the same as in a public one, many people, especially the poor, would prefer to buy in the public hospital where drugs are sold much cheaper.
Hopefully, this will change the pricing of private hospitals,” he said. (NRC)
