Hospital holiday mulled over cheap meds bill

Owners of private hospitals may hold a “hospital holiday” to protest the Cheaper Medicine Bill and the Hospital Detention Law which they believe to be repressive and detrimental to the medical sector.

Dr. Rustico Jimenez, president of the Private Hospital Association of the Philippines (PHAP), said the group would discuss whether or not they would push through with the protest action when it holds a board meeting on Jan. 29.

“I’ll be bringing that up to the Board. We’ll have to thoroughly study that. We are very concerned about the Cheaper Medicine Bill because, when it is passed, it won’t be good for our patients,” he told The STAR.

The bill seeks to prohibit doctors from prescribing branded medicine in an effort to increase access to affordable and quality drugs. Prescriptions should contain only the generic names of drugs.

“There are generic drugs that take a longer time to cure patients. Of course we don’t want that. And there are patients who’d rather buy branded medicine than generics, so what are we going to do with that? If there’s a problem, it’s the doctors and the hospitals that the patients will sue,” he noted.

PHAP had originally planned to hold a hospital holiday in May last year to protest the Hospital Detention Law, which prohibits hospitals from detaining patients with unpaid bills.

The group complained that the law will cause many hospitals to close down because only 10 percent of patients that submit promissory notes actually come back to pay.

Under the plan, hospitals will only take in emergency cases and turn away consultations for two days every month.

PHAP shelved the plan after the Department of Health (DOH) had agreed to grant two of their demands – the allocation of guarantee funds from the national government and decrease in the penalty for violating hospitals.

PHAP was also made part of the technical working group that formulated the implementing rules and regulations of the new law.

Under the Revised Penal Code, such hospitals will be slapped with a fine of up to P100,000 and hospital officials could be meted a maximum jail term of 20 years.

PHAP had wanted these penalties to be downgraded to P20,000 to P50,000 in fine and the jail term to one to six months.

Jimenez noted the DOH had already come out with the Implementing Rules and Regulations but none of their agreements was included.

“It’s really disappointing. What we only wanted was protection. We are partners of the government in giving care to patients so I think we should have been taken into consideration,” he added.