Senate Bill No. 260 on the “Comprehensive Lupus Management and Treatment Act,” which was filed by @senmarkvillar , was taken up last week during the Senate Committee on Health and Demography hearing. The bill seeks to institute a responsive national health program that will holistically support Filipino Lupus Warriors, underlining the need to include early detection and diagnosis as a part of Philhealth’s benefits.
Lupus is a chronic and lifelong illness but despite the expensive medicine and treatment for the disease there has been very little support from the government. There is a lack of access to medicine that lupus patients can avail of because the medicine for lupus is not yet included in the Philippine National Drug Formulary. There is a lack of access to proper treatment because there are very few rheumatologists (specialists on lupus treatment) and they are not present in all the provinces. Many patients have to travel several hours and to another province just to see a specialist. There is also a lack of information about lupus that has been a cause for misdiagnosis and many undiagnosed and untreated cases that have caused death.
All this can be addressed through the passage of the Comprehemsive Lupus Management and Treatment Act. It would greatly improve lupus patient outcomes and save lives. We earnestly hope it will be passed in this Congress.
