Email 337: Future of ARV Delivery?

Posted by Pozziepinoy on 6:26 PM

Hi Pozzie,

I have just encountered your blog yesterday. I must say, even if I have google'd and talked to lots of people, I still learned a lot from your blog. Not to mention the insights from other PLHIV.

Anyway, my concern is about the supply of ARVs in the country. I have just started my ARV regimen a month ago and I have been hearing a lot of speculations when 2014 comes. We all know that the free ARVs that we are getting is from the Global Fund from the WHO, and is expected to be (for lack of better term) depleted by next year. The concern came up when I heard stories that during the time of former Pres. Estrada, the government stopped giving out supply of ARVs to PLHIVs. This caused too much worry, stress and problems to them. They even shared that they were taking expired medicines just to continue with the regimen. This scenario is very scary (*knock on wood*).

We inquired about it when we were in a training session in RITM. They advised that the country is a signatory of a UN convention wherein the government should ensure care and treatment to PLHIVs. We were also told that as long as we have PhilHealth, there should be nothing to worry about. However, personally, I didn't get it clearly. We all know that the PhilHealth has been criticized by some, like late payments in hospitals, etc. I wasn't able to ask further questions about it because there were too many questions in that session.

Can you help shed some light how the system or process of ARV supply continue by 2014 or when the Global fund is all used up? 

Thank you very much!


Best Regards,
JM


POZZIEPINOY’S RESPONSE

Hi JM.

Thank your for your email. Thank you for finding the blog. I do hope that you will find all the answers to your questions here.

With regards to your question, I do understand your concern. Everybody has been worrying about it even before I got diagnosed. Let's look at it from a different perspective. 

 Years before, the program of ARV delivery was not as good not as the one we have right now that may have resulted to failures in the delivery of the ARV's. When the Global Fund started subsidizing the ARV's, the system became in order as year after year, there is ample supply of the medicines. Last year, the news broke out again that the Global Fund will stop subsidizing the ARV's. Because of this, I emailed Global Fund and you can read the response of Global Fund to my email below:

In the response letter, one can deduce that the grant will continue as long as the government continues to propose programs to GL.

In your training session, you heard it right that the country has now a responsibility to furnish all the necessary ARV's to the Filipino PLHIV's as part of their commitment to UN. That is the reason why, PhilHealth has a system in place "just in case" GL will pull out it's support to the Philippines. This was reiterated by my 2 infectious disease doctor when they said that PhilHealth is ready in the event that this should happen.

Now the question is this. While the government is organizing the system, are we ready to do our part in lobbying for better programs for PLHIV's especially about ARV delivery? Are we all prepared to come out and voice out our concerns once there will be problems that might arise once PhilHealth takes over? My point here is that not all the time, we will be dependent on the grants of GL. Later on, our government and possibly private organisations will take over, but of course they will be needing our voices during the process. We all should be prepared to take part in discussions later on to help in "perfecting" the delivery of ARV's by PhilHealth and not just be another bystander who won't do anything.

We don't know what the future will hold for us, but what we can do right now is to appreciate everything that is being given to us, and learn that a good system like this can happen, even without the support of the GL, if we start holding hands and start to be proactive because in the first place, we are the people who will benefit from all of these.

I hope I was able to answer your concerns. Feel free to email me again if you have other questions.


Stay healthy,
Pozziepinoy





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