Ex-Health chief seeks amendments to ‘restrictive’ Universal Health Care law

Iloilo Representative and former Health secretary Janette Garin is urging Congress to amend the Universal Health Care (UHC) law to allow medicines, including vaccines, already cleared in Phase 3 of clinical trials to be made available to the public.

In a statement, Garin said medicines, vaccines and medical devices need not undergo Phase 4 clinical study before they are made publicly available, as Section 34 of the UHC law states.

"After the Phase 3 clinical trial, health interventions are already considered safe and efficacious. With this requirement of Phase 4 [clearance], Filipinos will have no recourse but to go to other countries to gain access to any breakthrough in science," she said.

"This Section 34 of UHC is just one of the many provisions deemed restrictive and detrimental to health care accessibility. I call on the leadership of both Houses to make the amendment to UHC a priority," Garin added.

In addition, Garin said that the UHC provision establishing the creation of the Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC), a recommendatory panel to the DOH and PhilHealth for the development of policies and programs, regulation, and the determination of a range of entitlements such as drugs, medicines, pharmaceutical products, other devices, procedures and services, should likewise be removed.

“It was [just] influenced by anti-pharmaceutical groups and former officials who wanted to empower themselves,” she said.

Garin has criticized the HTAC in the past, saying it should share the blame for delays that resulted in millions of expired COVID-19 vaccines.

“We can change the PhilHealth chief a hundred times but unless we amend the law as soon as possible, Universal Health Care can never be achieved," Garin added. — BM, GMA Integrated News