The issue behind Senate Bill 1900

A few years ago, "An Act Regulating the Education and Licensure of Physicians and Their Practice of Medicine in the Philippines and for Other Purposes," otherwise known as Senate Bill 1900, caused a stir among pharmacists when an attempt to redefine the physician's roles was being "cooked" in the Senate.

If the bill passed the Senate, physicians will be allowed "to diagnose, treat, operate or prescribe and dispense any remedy for any human disease, injury, deformity, physical or mental condition."(1)

To air its position, the Philippine Society of Hospital Pharmacists issued an official statement for "A Call to Modify Senate Bill 1900." (2) The Drugstores Association of the Philippines also wrote the senate outlining its comments on the said bill. (3)

I suspect that maybe the reason why the word "dispense" found its way into Senate Bill 1900 is because of our failure to do properly what we are licensed to do.

For example, Dr. A.G. Romualdez, Jr. claimed that “here in the Philippines, until the advent of the Pharmacy Law…, most private Filipino patients obtained their medicines from the doctors who prescribed them. In most of the country, dispensing physicians were historically a big help in the distribution chain of drugs and they ensured that services were reasonably priced. Unfortunately, the practice has largely disappeared mainly because, under the Pharmacy Law, doctors were allowed to dispense only those medicines that they directly administered either by injection or inhalation or direct application to specific organs.” (4)

Now, this should be a wake up call to all of us...

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References:
1. http://www.inq7.net/globalnation/col_pik/2003/jul31.htm
2. http://www.pshp.org.ph/article.aspx?ID=5
3. http://www.dsap.org.ph/index1.php?fid=senate
4. Romualdez, A.G. Jr., MD. "Anti-poor conspiracies." Malaya 18 Aug. 2004.