House panel passes bill to make various types of dialysis free for senior citizens

MANILA, Philippines — A committee in the House of Representatives approved Thursday a measure that would make different types of dialysis free for senior citizens.

During its online meeting, the House committee on senior citizens approved House Bill No. 7859 or the “Free Dialysis for Senior Citizens Act of 2020.”

Under the bill, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) shall reimburse senior citizens the cost of needed hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, and other kinds of dialysis approved by the Department of Health provided that such treatment is availed of at accredited hospitals and freestanding dialysis centers of the state insurer.

The proposed law, however, notes that only treatments that use dialysis solutions included in the latest edition of the Philippine National Drug Formulary shall be reimbursed by PhilHealth.

Additionally, according to Senior Citizens Partylist Rep. Rodolfo Ordanes, the principal author of the measure, dialysis sessions currently subsidized by PhilHealth under Circular No. 22-2015 only cover 90 of the 144 dialysis sessions needed on average by a senior citizen.

“This means that senior citizens who are at risk of developing serious complications and becoming a fatality due to kidney disease are still required to pay for the remaining 54 sessions,” Ordanes said in the bill.

“Thus, for our senior citizens with kidney disease to survive, they need a total of P135,000 per year, an amount that is extremely onerous for our ten million senior citizens considering that most of them are already unemployed and reliant on their pensions,” he added.

With its approval at the committee level, the measure will now be brought to the plenary for further debates.

PhilHealth earlier increased the number of subsidized dialysis sessions to 144 but only until December 31, 2020, as it also covers individuals who are not senior citizens.

Ordanes’ proposal, however, aims to make the 144 free dialysis sessions institutionalized for senior citizens.

KGA