1. What problem are you seeing in the anecdote?

The main problem in the story is that the procurement or access to specific drugs can
sometimes be limited or inaccessible. In a sense, this means that the system is flawed and that
healthcare is sometimes quite difficult to attain.

2. How may pharmacy services contribute or help to the problem addressed?

One of the problems that could have been addressed are alternatives to treat Luis’s condition.
As pharmacists, it is our job to provide counselling on medication for patients, find alternative
medication to make it more sustainable for them, or refer them to a doctor as to also try a
different kind of treatment.

3. Do you have ideas on how your local government unit or DOH implemented or
acted upon such same issues like that?

Not based on a personal experience, but based on my father’s employee’s experience, despite
paying hundreds of thousands on health insurance to PhilHealth, they only received roughly
9000 pesos for the illness of my father’s employee who was fighting for his life. My father ended
up having to pay out-of-pocket for medication and post-operative therapy.

4. On the other hand, can you describe how COVID cases are handled by your
own barangay or LGU

As for COVID-19, I think our LGU managed it pretty well. People in need were given supplies
monthly. There were plenty of checkpoints to make sure that everyone on the roads had a valid
pass to go out and leave their homes to minimize the amount of people that could possibly get
infected. Our frontliners did a great job of minimizing the cases overall.