MANILA (UCAN): “Drug shortages can have a significant impact on patient care, and hoarding may worsen the problem … Hoarding means there are fewer medicines available and the poor cannot buy them anymore because they’re not available,” Bishop Oscar Jaime Florencio, who heads the healthcare commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, told Radyo Veritas on January 10.
He was responding to recent reports about a shortage of anti-flu drugs as well as medicines like paracetamol and cough syrup due to panic buying.
Bishop Florencio said that he saw no reason for panic buying by the rich except for greed, which prevents the poor from purchasing needed medicine.
“Greed is the culprit. It is greedy to buy a large amount,” the bishop said.
“If we don’t need that much, don’t buy that many drugs. It is not just you who wants to live. We have thousands of fellow Filipinos testing positive for Covid each day. Give them a chance to get well by making the medicines they need available when they need them,” he said.
Several drug companies in Manila reported they were struggling to meet the demand for paracetamol and other medicines amid a surge of infections.
Ramon Lopez, the secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry Secretary told reporters on January 10, “While there is an observed increase in demand for such products, there is no ongoing shortage in the Philippines,” adding that the president, Rodrigo Duterte, was looking at setting limits on purchases.
Lopez said popular brands may be scarce but generic medicines were readily available.
Bishop Florencio also encouraged fully vaccinated people to convince the unvaccinated to get inoculated to avoid severe Covid-19 complications.
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“Give assurances to those unvaccinated that it is safe … Vaccines save lives. So, even before hoarding medicines, let us first convince others to get jabbed,” he said
On January 10, there were 33,169 new cases of the fast-spreading Omicron variant, according to the Department of Health.
As of January 9, at least 52.3 million of the Philippines’ population of roughly 111 million had been fully vaccinated, according to the latest government figures.
