In a
country where little more than a quarter of the population still live below the
poverty line, universal healthcare – or, at the least, giving people access to
cheap medicines – should be right there at the top of government’s priority
programs. Fortunately, this was among the priority concerns that President
Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte first took up with his Cabinet members on day one of the
new administration.
When he
convened his maiden Cabinet meeting a few hours after his inaugural last June
30, President Rody lost no time to identify the priority thrusts of his
administration, at least on its first 100 days in office.
In the
Cabinet meeting at Malacañang Palace, President Rody made this off-the-cuff
pronouncement that he is sending newly appointed Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial
to Cuba to study that country’s highly successful healthcare program.
I had no
idea what President Rody was talking about. The first thing that came to my
mind was the campaign attacks against the alleged communist links of the former
Davao City mayor. I have fairly little knowledge about Cuba other than it has
long been under communist rule by a dictator named Fidel Castro. It is a large
Caribbean island nation located close to the United States.
Fascinated
by this revelation of President Rody of the Cuban model of public health care,
I browsed through Google.com. Cubans call their system medicina general
integral (MGI, comprehensive general medicine). Its programs focus on
preventing people from getting diseases and treating them as rapidly as
possible.
Even the
director-general of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, was all
praises for Cuba’s healthcare system. She commented after her visit to Havana
in July, 2014: “Cuba is the only country that has a healthcare system closely
linked to research and development. This is the way to go, because human health
can only improve through innovation… We sincerely hope that all of the world’s
inhabitants will have access to quality medical services, as they do in Cuba.”
Opinion (
Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1
According
to the WHO, over 100 countries are looking to the example of Cuba, which has
the same 78-year life expectancy of the US while spending 4 percent per person
annually of what the US does. The most revolutionary idea of the Cuban system
is doctors living in the neighborhood they serve. “A doctor-nurse team is part
of the community and know their patients well because they live at (or near)
the consultorio (doctors’ office) where they work. Consultorios are backed up
by policlínicos which provide services during off-hours and offer a wide
variety of specialists. Policlínicos coordinate community health delivery and
link nationally designed health initiatives with their local implementation.”
Budget
Secretary Benjamin Diokno noted President Rody’s plan to replicate Cuba’s
healthcare model is doable in the Philippine context.
Aside
from Davao City, the DBM chief noted the province of Albay, under the
leadership of its former governor and now Congressman Joey Salceda, has
achieved a high level of efficiency from primary to tertiary hospital care.
Now as
the country’s Chief Executive, President Rody showed how his unorthodox and
revolutionary manner of doing things made him one of the most successful mayors
in the Philippines. During his years serving as Davao City mayor, he had
effectively addressed local health concerns of his constituents.
The
President announced his plan to funnel the P35-billion annual earnings of the
state-owned Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. to the Department of Health.
It will fund essential healthcare and the pharmaceutical needs of Filipinos,
particularly the poor. Because as President Rody succinctly put it, “people who
cannot buy medicines will die.”
And this
brings us back to the Cheaper Medicines Act, now spanning three
administrations. I remember that in 2009, then president and now Pampanga Rep.
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo used her favorite “moral suasion” to call on
pharmaceutical firms to slash the prices of their essential medicines by 50
percent.
Actually,
even those who earn more than the poverty threshold of P9,140/per month would
see their capacity to spend for basic things greatly diminished when they are
on maintenance drugs. This is based on personal experience, as I am also on
maintenance medicine.
Being
close to my heart, I also wrote opinion columns about this topic in the past,
particularly because it became apparent that this appeal of Mrs. Arroyo was
being met with strong resistance from giant multinational companies (MNCs). One
big MNC on pharmaceutical products even faced Senate probe for the release of
its so-called discount cards which was seen as a mere marketing strategy that
provide calibrated discounts to their medicine products dispensed only by
doctors being served by their company’s medical representatives.
As
consumers of maintenance drugs who must take these medication on life-time
basis, we count on the Cheaper Medicines Law to cushion us from inflation. The
government needs to review the marketing campaign of MNCs at the level of the
doctors, who are closest to the patients. Maybe this is one of the missing
links to the successful implementation of the Cheaper Medicines Act.
This is
despite the greater efforts by the previous Aquino administration, which
focused on Universal Healthcare and even strengthened PhilHealth services with
the support of the funds coming from the Sin Tax law.
Filipinos
getting full access to cheaper medicines will not happen without the
cooperation of everyone. Despite the Generics Law that has given patients
cheaper priced medicines that they can afford but with same efficacy,
multinational brands continue to dominate the market, particularly for
essential medicines. However, these profit-motivated MNCs don’t see the need to
really bring down their prices to the affordable level of lower income
patients.
I
remember asking former Secretary Janette Garin when she was our Kapihan sa
Manila Bay guest in January this year about the sudden rise of price of a MNC
branded medicine that I was taking. Believe me, I know and feel the frustration
of Filipinos who are on maintenance drugs.
But I see
hope in President Rody’s forward-looking directive to look into the Cuban
model. We can only conclude that change is indeed coming – and it’s coming
fast.
philstar
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