With medicine prices going down, the DOH is now reminding our public to use medicines rationally and to complete their prescribed treatment regimen. Local and international trends are geared towards wellness. Rather than be burdened with the high costs of treatment, especially of hospitalizations, people tend to prefer to invest in the prevention of diseases and the promotion of healthy lifestyles and environments. This wellness concept saves money and improves quality of lives.
“Engaging in sports promotes Wellness. Like sports and healthy lifestyles, compliance to medicines regimen is also Wellness. If you take your prescribed medicines rationally and correctly, you will feel better, live longer, be more productive, and have a good quality of life,” Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral stated.
The DOH has launched this “Compliance to Medicines is Wellness” campaign today in ceremonies held at the Philippine Sports Commission compound, the training grounds for Manny Pacquiao during his amateur days. It was witnessed and supported by PSC Chair Harry Angping, a key official in the promotion of Sports and Wellness in the country. The event aims to promote sports and the rational use of medicines.
“Our efforts to bring down prices of medicines would be incomplete if people persist on not completing their treatment,” Cabral explained. “One common malpractice is when patients stop completing antibiotic courses when their symptoms are gone because it costs too much money to complete a course. But this leads to antibiotic resistance which in turn pushes doctors to prescribe more expensive antibiotics later on.”
An example is the antibiotic Amoxicillin which is just around three (3) pesos. To complete a treatment of seven (7) days and cure you of a bacterial infection, you need 21 capsules that cost 63 pesos only. If the infection becomes resistant to Amoxicillin, to complete a course of another antibiotic, this may cost from 700 pesos to more than 1,000 pesos.
Cabral further mentions that, “Even if you suffer from chronic diseases like diabetes or hypertension, regular intake of prescribed maintenance drugs promises a better quality of life, with less risk for complications or hospitalizations. The lowered costs of medicines now allow our people to comply and complete their treatment courses and take their medicines religiously, if needed.”
These lowered prices of medicines are due to initiatives by government to engage industry to bring down their prices as well as to the competition provided for by lower priced generics whether from local or from multinational sources.
“What we are promoting here are low cost medicines, whether branded or generic. These medicines offer competition that put pressure on high priced medicines to bring down their prices. Generic competition helps and even multinational companies now are geared towards having quality affordable generic lines for their products,” Cabral stressed.
“Manny Pacquiao is our hero. His discipline is an inspiration to us all. And we want our people to exhibit the same discipline in taking medicines as Manny does in training for fights especially now that medicine prices are going down,” Cabral said.
The DOH announced last month the second round of government mediated price reductions that covered 98 medicines. These covered medicines for dialysis, cancer, prostatic disorders, asthma, depression, hypertension, among others. A majority of these price cuts would be effective March 31, 2010. The first round happened August last year where prices of more than 100 medicines were cut by 50%.
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