By Egay Uy
LOSING someone close to your heart is one of the most difficult and trying episodes of one’s life. Years of togetherness, memories, and moments, both happy and sad, suddenly become sidelined. It’s not easy, comforters are right.
What made me cope with the loss is the support system around me. My children (Jeiu and Tata, OJ and Dotie with son Caleb Jose, and Jojo), my brothers and sisters in the Uy family and their respective spouses and children, and my in-laws in the Roa-Inovero side of the bigger family have always been there. Juliet’s and my circle of friends and associates also made a difference.
Juliet’s passing was so sudden – like the proverbial thief in the night. People close to her and who loved her could not believe she left us so early. JAGRILL, her high school barkada, was always there keeping watch and making sure their close friend was taken care of during her last minutes in our company.
My siblings and in-laws in the Uy side of the family made sure I got the needed rest since Juliet’s first confinement in the hospital on Dec. 6 until she joined our Creator on Jan. 2. It was a “bawal magkasakit” period for me. Of course, there were those in the Inovero side who readily “came to the rescue.”
Juliet’s passing also awakened some consciousness which I hope will be addressed seriously by those in the know. While she was being treated in a private hospital, I discovered that the prices of medicines sold in at least one private hospital drugstore are much higher than those in drugstores outside hospitals.
I wrote the Department of Health to bring the matter to its attention. Sadly, the DOH replied, among other justifications and without even hinting to initiate a fact-finding investigation, that the “DOH has no authority in the control of drug prices x x x and do not have the guidelines or any legal document as basis that DOH will have to control the drug prices of those in the private sector.”
Sorry, but I cannot buy that. It is simply too passive on the part of the DOH to state it has no authority. Can’t it initiate an investigation and submit recommendations to policymakers and those who can make decisions?
This matter will not be put to rest here. We’re not done yet.
(Egay Uy is a lawyer. He chairs the City’s Regulatory and Complaint Board, co-chairs with the city mayor the City Price Coordinating Council, and chairs the city’s Joint Inspection Team. He retired as a vice president of Cepalco.)
