Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) will initiate a dialogue with drugstore owners, physicians and municipal health officers to urge them to fully implement the Generics Law which was envisioned to extend affordable and effective medicines to the public. The Department of Health began implementing the Cheaper Medicines Law placing 21 prescription drugs under a 50-percent mandatory price reduction. The SP already tasked a team to check whether drugstores are following the imposition of the price cut under the Cheaper Medicines Law.. SP stress that generic medicines should be accessible by the public although some selected branded drugs are already made cheaper by the new law. And that doctors should prescribe to consumers the generic equivalent of medicines which are generally more affordable. In the recent SP session, a joint committee headed by Board Member Cesar Tomas Lopez was created to investigate if pharmacies abide by the Cheaper Medicine Law. Lopez, a physician, said the Boholano consumers should now start availing of the half-priced medicines in local drugstores.
Reports were received by the Provincial Health Department that many drugstores in the province did not comply with the mandatory price cuts on specified drugs covered by the Cheaper Medicines Law prompting lawmakers to closely monitor compliance of pharmacies on the new measure.
