Cheaper Medicines Act: Useless and Not Beneficial to Filipinos Continue to Fight for Cheap, Safe, and Available Medicines

After four years of implementation, the Cheaper Medicines Act proves itself a big failure. There are defective provisions and whatever maybe positive in the law is weakly implemented. Cheaper Medicines Act is useless and not beneficial to Filipinos. Patients expected R.A. 9502 or Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of 2008, more commonly known as Cheaper Medicines Act, to address the unaffordability and unavailability of medicines. However, prices of medicines have not gone down. In fact, prices of some medicines even increased over the last four years. As a result, more and more people, especially poor patients, suffering from chronic or long-term diseases are increasingly burdened with debts in purchasing badly needed medicines for their life-threatening illnesses.

The Consumers’ Action for Empowerment conducted the “Survey on Access, Affordability and Availability of Medicines of Medicines” to establish the impact of the Cheaper Medicines Act on patients who regularly use them. Questions asked pertain to the medicines prescribed to patients and their capacity to buy the medicines, where they buy their medicines, and their sources of funds to purchase their medicines.

The survey used purposive random sampling in selection of hospitals and communities. Respondents chosen were those undergoing long-term treatment or required taking at least a week’s dosage of medication. Included were seven hospitals as follows: Philippine General Hospital, San Lazaro Hospital, Jose Reyes Memorial and Medical Center, Tondo Medical Center, Philippine Heart Center, National Kidney and Transplant Institute, East Avenue Medical Center, and four communities from Pasig, Paranaque, Payatas and Tondo. Data gathered here was from May 10-May 25, 2012. The survey in on-going in other areas.

Patients’Profile

There were 840 respondents from the seven hospitals and four communities. Of, these 58 percent were female and 42 percent were male. Majority were married (55%), single (31%), separated (10%) and widowed (3%).

A big portion or 85 percent were from the National Capital Region while the rest were from CALABARZON (7%) , Central Luzon (5%), and a few from Bicol, Cagayan Valley and Eastern Visayas. A majority of patients or 42 percent had no jobs with an additional 23 percent who were housewives. Those employed were in the service sector (13 percent), and the rest in transport, construction, agriculture, service sector, housekeepers, sales, professionals, or retired. It is interesting to note that 2 percent were oddjobbers who survived by scavenging, were “barkers,” (individuals who earned tips from drivers by callilng/”barking” to passengers to ride the jeepney), peeled off the skin of garlic cloves, and made charcoal from scrap firewood.

Diseases and Medicines Used

Top ten diseases of respondents were namely heart disease (28.50%), rabies (13.32%), upper respiratory tract infection (12.92%), renal (11.19%), cancer (7.86%), diabetes (7.72%), lung disease (7.59%), gastro-intestinal (3.99%), bone/musco-skeletal (3.46%) and tuberculosis (3.46%). The top 10 medicines by categories of use were anti-hypertentensive (24.16 %), cardiovascular (14.54%), anti-bacterial/anti-biotics/anti-infectives (13.70%), vitamins, 11.12%, analgesics (9.38%), vaccines/immunologicals/sera (9.31%), respiratory drugs (6.85%) gastro-intestinal (4.39%), anti-diabetic (3.97%) and central nervous system disorders (2.58%)

Note that these diseases require essential medicines that are needed on maintenance or long term-basis and are usually expensive. Some patients still rely on vitamins, probably unaware of rational drug use and that these vitamins are not essential.

The respondents listed 2,033 prescription medicines that they use for their various illnesses. Only 828 medicines (44.67%) were taken on full or complete doses. More than half or 1,026 medicines (55.33%) were taken only on partial basis. An overwhelming 99.8 percent said that they lacked the money or did not have money available for medication.

Availability of Medicines

There were 37 percent respondents who bought their medicines from the government-hospital pharmacy or botika ng barangay where they maybe cheaper. But when these are not available or there are no stocks , 63 percent go to commercial pharmacies. Of these, 29.53 percent bought medicines from Mercury Drugstore to buy their branded medicines. Interestingly, another 29.53% also went or to the Generics Pharmacy for generic prescriptions, an indication that patients buy generic medicines when these are available.

Affordability of Medicines

The survey showed that only 21.86 percent of respondents could afford to shoulder their own medical expenses. Other respondents rely on relatives to give them money for medication, resort to solicitations from government, private organizations or church organizations. Loan and mortages were resorted by those who did not have money or needed to augment their incomes. In summary, patient-respondents for the Survey on Accessibility, Affordability and Availability of Medicines are those in need of maintenance medicines for long-term/chronic illnesses, or need a week’s dose. Medicines are expensive and essential, especially those which are branded. The patients go to the government hospital pharmacies to buy medicines, but when these are not available they often go to Mercury Drugstore or the Generics Pharmacy. Many patients have no job, or lack income derived from their work. Many have to be supported by their families. Others rely on solicitations from government or private institutions. Others loan or mortgage property to enable them to buy medicines.

Though patient-respondents were not asked about the impact of the Cheaper Medicines Act, their experiences bear witness to the sad state of implementation of the Cheaper Medicines Act.

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