MANILA, Philippines?The Department of Health is ?working on? another round of drug price cuts before President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?s term ends next June, according to DoH Secretary Esperanza Cabral.
However, Cabral said, they were ?not making any promises.?
The first two rounds of voluntary price reductions by some 20 local pharmaceutical companies covered over 200 types of drugs and health care products sold in drug stores and hospital pharmacies nationwide.
Dr. Robert Louie So, head of the DoH?s National Center for Pharmaceutical Access and Management, said his office?s ?initiatives in bringing down the prices of medicines do not stop.?
Meanwhile, a study conducted late last year by the non-government Center for Legislative Development (CLD) showed that despite drug price cuts of 50 to 70 percent, the Arroyo administration?s ?access to cheap medicines? program benefited mainly the middle class and not the poor?its intended beneficiaries.
?The Filipino poor are so poor, price cuts would not result in greater access to medicines,? said the CLD whose office is based at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati City.
In a 20-page report, the CLD said ?even the price ceiling on medicines was lowered considerably, the poor still find it difficult to buy the number and quality of drugs they need to cure or control their illnesses.?
?Most of the poor can hardly avail of the medicines they need in the market no matter how cheap the generic medicines may be because of insufficiency of income,? said the report, titled ?Assessing the Government?s Medicines Access Program.?
Most of the study?s 600 respondents?all transient residents of Barangays (villages) 164 and 165 in Tondo, Manila; Barangays Marulas and Maypajo in Caloocan City; and Barangays Botocan and Pinyahan in Quezon City?reported sporadic or even rare consumption of medicines.
?Only 15 out of the 600 respondents were able to meet the complete amount of medicines they need, while the rest had insufficient access. The numbers suggested that the lower the income, the lesser is their access to medicines and physicians,? the report said.
Asked to comment, DoH?s So said that ?there?s no perfect system.?
He insisted ?mas maraming mahihirap ang natutulungan ng (more poor people are helped by the) DoH access to medicines program.?
He cited the price cuts on paracetamol. ?In the past, some medicine brands like paracetamol cost as much as P22 per tablet. Today they are down to only 50 centavos,? So said.
