FILE PHOTO: DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire. INQUIRER FILES
MANILA, Philippines — Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, officer in charge of the Department of Health (DOH), has been accused by one of her subordinates of mismanaging funds for the procurement of cancer drugs and jeopardizing the lives of many cancer patients.
Dr. Clarito Cairo, program manager of the cancer control division of the DOH’s Disease Prevention and Control Bureau (DPCB), filed a 25-page amended complaint on Monday to add Vergeire to the list of respondents facing charges of violations of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, as she had “full control” of the funds in question.
The complaint alleged, among others, that Vergeire and six other health officials had conspired to remove a number of public hospitals as recipients of funds from the P786-million Cancer and Supportive-Palliative Medicine Access Program (CSPMAP) and the P529-million Cancer Assistance Fund.
They also allegedly showed undue preference for a more costly cancer drug to the detriment of the program beneficiaries, Cairo said in the complaint.
Responding to the allegations at a press briefing on Tuesday, Vergeire said “all processes that were carried out in the program, specific to the accusations regarding cancer funds, were aboveboard.”
“Everything was done in a transparent manner. It was not only the DOH that steered and made decisions for this program, but also experts from the National Integrated Cancer Control Council,” she said.
In December, Cairo filed the original complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman accusing senior DOH officials of grave misconduct, graft and malversation of public funds.
19 of 31 specialty hospitals
The doctor said the CSPMAP funds were transferred to only 19 of 31 specialized public hospitals, a move he considered ‘’highly disadvantageous’’ to the government and allegedly put the lives of the cancer patients in the unfunded facilities at risk.
The respondents in the original complaint were Assistant Health Secretary Beverly Lorraine Ho; former DOH Director Anna Melissa Guerrero; current DOH Directors Razel Nikka Hao and Anthony Cu; and doctors Kim Patrick Tejano and Jan Aura Laurelle Llevado.
Cairo, a licensed physician, pharmacist and nurse, also accused the officials of conspiring to “disregard” his expertise in the procurement of cancer medicines and his “institutional memory.”
Cairo said some public hospitals, such as the Philippine General Hospital, Rizal Medical Center and Amang Rodriguez Memorial Medical Center, were removed as access sites that were supposed to receive the sub-allotment.
Favored drug brand
The move, he said, was a “grave disservice” to patients enrolled in the program.
Cairo also alleged that the respondents had favored a brand of the medicine Trastuzumab, marketed as Herceptin 600mg SC, which he said remains under the patent rights of Roche Philippines Inc. and was “just new to the market.”
He said the DOH officials preferred this brand to the much cheaper Trastuzumab 150mg IV variant.
Cairo explained that a breast cancer patient would usually need two vials of the Trastuzumab 150mg for 18 treatment cycles or one vial of the Trastuzumab 600mg, also for 18 cycles.
But based on 2021 prices, he said, each vial of the 150mg drug would cost only P8,000 while the 600mg variant was priced at P26,000 each.
That means over the course of 18 cycles, the cheaper drug would cost P288,000 while the one supposedly preferred by the DOH officials would cost P468,000, Cairo said.
“There will be 1,458 patients who will benefit from the 150mg while only 897 patients will benefit from the 600mg formulation,” Cairo said. “That is a huge difference in terms of beneficiaries.”
‘By reason of her office’
“As OIC of DOH and concurrent Undersecretary for Public Health Services Team, which includes the DPCB, respondent Vergeire had full control of funds by reason of the duties of her office,” Cairo said in the amended complaint.
Last month, 20 DOH hospitals that serve as access sites for CSPMAP defended the DOH on the matter, saying they could attest that some P809.4 million had been allocated to them and that the funds were “used efficiently.”