Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said it is “pointless” to compare the Philippine government’s COVID-19 response to other countries due to the “fragmented” health system in place.
Department of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III (PCOO / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
Duque said that prescriptions must contain the name of the doctor who prescribed the drug, their office address, professional registration number of the physician, professional tax receipt number, and the patient’s information.
“So dapat kailangan sundin ito. Hindi pwedeng token na prescription lang. Kung totoo man ‘yun na nakalagay daw sa isang bond paper lang (So it must be followed. It is not allowed to have a token prescription only if it is true that it was written on a bond paper only),” he said in an interview over ANC.
By JOAHNA LEI CASILAO, GMA News
Published April 30, 2021 4:17pm The number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in the country rose to 1,037,460 on Friday with 8,748 new infections as five laboratories failed to submit data on time. According to the Department of Health (DOH), this pushed the active cases in the country to 73,908. Of this, 95.1% are mild, 1.7% are asymptomatic, 1.3% are severe, and 1% are in critical condition. Meanwhile, 4,143 more patients have also recovered from the illness, bringing the total to 946,318. Meanwhile, the death toll increased to 17,234 with 89 new fatalities. Twenty-six duplicate cases were also removed from the total case count. “Moreover, 46 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
(JANSEN ROMERO / MANILA BULLETIN)
“It’s very difficult to be comparing. You will just be frustrated. There will always be better countries or worst countries fairing than us,” Duque said in an ANC interview Friday, April 30.
“So it is pointless because the response is dynamic. It must take into consideration what the structure is of the health system, like in the Philippines, we have a fragmented health system,” he added.
Because of the Local Government Code, the health chief explained that the public health services of the Department of Health (DOH) have been devolved to the local government units (LGUs).
(Photo by Oleg Vakhromov/ Unsplash)
Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., vaccine czar and chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, said Wednesday night, April 28, that letters of intent have already been sent by Health Secretary Francisco Duque III to Washington and Jerusalem.
“Right now Mr. President, we are just having a hard time securing the volume [of vaccines] in the first and second quarter. But I already talked to [Philippine] Ambassador [to United States Jose Manuel] Romualdez and he is now devising a plan so that the AstraZeneca vaccines from the US will be released to us. Secretary Duque wrote two letters of intent including one for Israel so we can access the excess [vaccines] of these countries,” Galvez told President Duterte in a televised Cabinet meeting.