The Philippine Pharmacists Association (PPA) has appealed to authorities to immediately arrest a man who shot and killed one of their members just for refusing to sell him antibiotics after he failed to present a doctor’s prescription.
In a news conference in their office, the PPA has denounced the killing of their member Loigene Geronimo, 40, a pharmacist and drugstore owner in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan.
Geronimo was killed by a lone gunman on September 26 inside her drugstore after she refused to sell antibiotics to the suspect due to lack of prescription from a doctor.
PPA officials, including its Pre-sident Dr. Yolanda Robles, former President Leonila Ocampo and Board of Directors Reynaldo Umali and Mercelinda Gutierrez, also asked the authorities to speed up their investigation on the case and arrest the still-unidentified suspect.
The officials said Geronimo was a good pharmacist, and she was just doing her job to protect the health and welfare of patients, as mandated by the Pharmacy Act of 2016, when she was killed by her customer.
The officials also explained that a pharmacist is very different from being an ordinary vendor, while antibiotics are not ordinary medicine, that’s why customers need to present prescription before they can be allowed to buy them.
Robles stressed that prescriptions from doctors are important to make sure that the medicines being given to the patients are fit to cure their illnesses and avoid any complication that may cause harm to their health.
Ocampo, for her part, noted that a pharmacist is a friend and not an enemy, while Umali said that what happened to Geronimo was the worst form of harassment against a pharmacist because it resulted in her death.
Gutierrez, meanwhile, appealed to authorities to give protection to pharmacists and other health workers in the country who are only doing their job.