Hospitals should stop ‘fleecing’ COVID-19 victims

The recent legislative hearings exposed horrible stories about the continuous “overpricing” of anti-viral drugs administered by some private hospitals on their COVID-19 patients. No wonder hospital bills for families of surviving or even deceased patients run to millions of pesos. While Philhealth compensates the maximum of P786,384 for critical pneumonia, P333,519 for severe, P143,267 for moderate, and P43,997 for mild, the prevailing hospitalization costs and their “life-saving drugs” technically “wipe out” these benefits in just a few days.

In that hearing, a patient in Manila reportedly paid P32,227.17 for three shots of experimental remdesivir or a whopping P10,852.39 for each dose. The original price of this same brand was just P3,055 per dose. Two patients from Laguna paid P12,090 for each dose of remdesivir but another brand, whose original price was only P2,268.

Another brand costing only P1,950 per dose was billed P9,500 in Pagadian City, Zamboanga, while in Quezon City, patients were charged P14,625 up to over P15,000 per dose. There were also reports of “overcharging” of up to 770 percent, (from original P6,200 to P48,241 per dose).

And worse, this widely used remdesivir still has no emergency use authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration. Therefore, it is not covered by Philhealth and patient victims and their families will pay direct.

I heard the DOH issued a recently revised “suggested retail price” (SRP) on these COVID-19 drugs. Dr. Melissa Guerrero of the DOH Pharmaceutical Division told the committee that hospi-tals say that the wholesale price of these drugs are anywhere from only P2,000 to P5,000 per dose.

Then why on earth are they violating the DOH SRP and overcharging by more than 700 per-cent? Where is the DOH enforcement of these SRPs? Can the patients and their families get their money back?

Another friend says critical COVID-19 patients also undergo hypoperfusion treatment (blood and lung procedure) with ventilators that amount to P70,000 per session and they need multiple times of these to survive. Simple Google research reveals that in India, this procedure amounts to 10,380 rupees or P6,830 only. I really cannot understand this big gap and why this is happen-ing.

It is now very clear to me. These hateful and un-Christian “opportunism” in critical life and death situations by some private hospitals must be immediately stopped .

Attention: Health Secretary Fransisco Duque III and the IATF.

Gen. Carlito Galvez, why the delay, sir?

This administration repeatedly bewails the ongoing worldwide shortage of vaccines as major reason for its slow vaccination efforts. But what they are not telling us is that usual bureaucrat-ic red tape and lack of common sense by some officials are hindering the arrival of these badly needed vaccines for us.

Take the case of India’s Bharat Biotech’s vaccine Covaxin, with an efficacy rate of 81 percent, and a lower temperature storage requirement of around 2 to 8 degrees Centigrade. It was giv-en EUA by FDA on April 19 and the company forthwith promised to deliver ASAP eight million doses for next month or June. Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion lauded the approval, saying many companies expressed interest together with Taguig City and other local governments.

But sadly, the multi-party agreement with the national government remained “unsigned” and languishing in the office of vaccine czar Sec. Carlito Galvez . I heard that he went to India last March to negotiate with Bharat Biotech and another Indian company.

So, why the delay, sir?