THE European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) said the passage of the cheap-medicines bill will be useless if the government will not be able to improve the accessibility of health care, particularly medical professionals, and medicine to the public.

“Cheaper medicine is not the solution. It’s the accessibility of health care and medicine,” Henry Schumacher, ECCP executive vice president, told reporters Thursday.

Schumacher said even if the bill is enacted, its proponents will continue to be haunted by the fact that a large portion of the population does not have access to doctors who will give advice on the use of the medicine.

“If you don’t see the doctor, you will not see the pharmacist,” Schumacher said.

Also, Schumacher said the public needs to be equipped by the government with the power to purchase the medicine they need at the right dosage and price for the measure to be useful.

He said there should be more discussions on how the government and the private sector can work together to make the access to health care better.

Like in the case of Indonesia, Schumacher said the government reimburses the expenses for medicine and hospitalization of the poor sector. He said a scheme should be devised to get the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. involved in a reimbursement system in the country.

Also, Schumacher said the government and the pharmaceutical firms can work together in coming up with two different packaging for off-patent medicines, so one of them can be sold by the state to the poor.

The cheap-medicines bill, which aims to lower the cost of drugs through the relaxing of patent laws and use of parallel importation of cheaper versions of some drugs from abroad, has been passed by the Senate and is now just awaiting the approval of the House of Representatives.

The ECCP has in its fold at least 10 global pharmaceutical companies, including Bayer, Glaxo and Hoechst.

Schumacher admitted that the pharmaceutical firms “have never been a friend of the bill” because of its provisions on the relaxation of patent rules.

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THE European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) said the passage of the cheap-medicines bill will be useless if the government will not be able to improve the accessibility of health care, particularly medical professionals, and medicine to the public.