The former benefit of 2,600 PHP is now 4,000 PHP for each and every Philhealth member which is my country's universal health care system government insurance service had really changed the difficult lives in terms of financially sustaining our already difficult medical condition into a much better situation because for one thing we do not have to worry about skipping dialysis schedules for the reason that dialysis treatment copays are now a thing of the past. What is more great is that we can be able to access free EPO injections in order for most of us correct our levels of anemia and that is a God-given gift because it does save lives for the reason that no dialysis patient anymore now will have to worry about buying such expensive hormone which comes in pre-filled syringes and vials is the best way to replace the already non-existent production of natural Erythropoietin (EPO) from dialysis patient's bodies. It is because these red blood cell producing hormones is being produced in the Kidneys, so if an individual would get a Kidney issue leading to its failure, that individual will get anemic until he/she does because their red blood cells will get depleted without being replaced by a way of either blood transfusion which is risky because you might get sick from acquiring viral diseases from it and also very expensive to acquire and also hard to come-by, or get to use EPO injections which would allow the patient's bone marrow to produce red blood cells again.
Normally the patients needs around two injections of EPO per week and based on my experience it is enough for the majority of dialysis patients to get the best red blood cell count which benefits them in terms of a better quality of life and alleviating the nasty symptoms of anemia which are insomnia, loss of weight, very bad appetite, marked weakness, decrease in cognitive function, and overall feeling of ill health which also can lead to other effects like madness due to the inability to sleep because lack of sleep causes death in the end. I already had known several patients which had that problem of getting a normal sleep until their hemoglobin levels had gone down at dangerous levels and it caused them the inability to sleep until the person just dies, he was an acquaintance of mine long ago and was a brother of mine from our church. Beforehand I was already aware of the implications of anemia so I always try to at least get some few minutes of sleep even if my eyelids would get painful for trying to shut them down so that I can sleep and avoid mental effects leading to getting crazy and maybe die too due to lack of sleep. I have years of experience with getting a quality sleep even now because my sleep patter is still intermittent because I would wake up after maybe two hours before I can sleep again and I find it already good because I already had experienced a severe insomnia before and even before I have been a dialysis patient because of my body's failure to produce enough EPO to make me feel normal.
Being anemic and even from many years leading to that had given me anxiety and plus having this grumpy personality as it would affect my emotions because of being close to panic attack and having panic attacks in some situations. I am correlating these conditions to being anemic and as I had said, even from the years leading to being anemic. That is why I never had a girlfriend because anxiety had prevented me in approaching the opposite sex considering that I am inherently shy and again I am correlating it from anemia because I know that it has been plaguing me ever since I was young, in-fact when I was just one year old, my mother had brought me to the hospital in Manila and there they found-out that I was anemic and I was given a blood transfusion. So it makes sense that I was having these symptoms which fashioned my life into what I do not want nor ever liked because it did disrupted my life particularly after my Kidneys slowly presented themselves going to the way of self-destruction. Well, the Kidneys are just a victim and I was just a collateral damage because the main culprit was my auto-immune disease which was left unchecked so it never got treated. It is because when I was born, there was no infant screening at that time unlike today where babies would be screed for a possible disease process so that it can get treated right-away so it would not lead to what had happened to me. My autoimmune disease which is an over-production of immunoglobulins which had stuck in my kidneys made them inflamed until the slowly died in me which while t was happening gave me all these symptoms until I got tortured in the process because of the years that I had to endure even before I had a clue on what really is going on in my body where my body is really in battle for fighting an invisible threat until my Kidneys got defeated in the end.
Detecting the root cause of my Kidney's demise came too late because at the time that I had a biopsy for one of my Kidney, they are already half-functioning and then my Nephrologist at that time told me and my mother that even if I got a transplant, the Kidneys will get sick again for sure because of my type of autoimmune disease. You can already imagine how that bad news in that fateful day of my birthday too had affected me plus the fact that the result of the viral test for my liver also shocked me particularly when the doctor also told us that I cannot get treated too because of that. So upon learning that, we went home with me crying inside the bus because I already know what will become of me and so all of the dreams and plans of what I want to do in my life just got shattered just like that but me and my mother continued to go for my monthly check-up until we stopped because I am not getting treated anyway because all of the trainee doctors are prescribing me are just vitamins and that blood pressure medicine which I later discovered is used to prolong the life if my kidneys by controlling the blood pressure specific to my Kidneys. That same blood pressure drug also was being used by my grandmother which later died because of it for the reason that its side-effect is known to cause liver problems too. Anyway, my mother and myself decided not to go anymore in the out-patient part of the hospital because it is charity-based and only trainee doctors are the only ones which is treating me with vitamins and blood pressure meds and nothing more aside from the difficulty and stress that have to put-up in going to and from the hospital, we said "enough is enough" and after that I just sank my head in the sand and wait until I would "face the music" later on which later turned-out to be the most awful "music" that ever landed in my ears.
Now although my own body's hemoglobin and red blood cell amount are sort of "good enough" as a dialysis patient, they are still low compared to a normal MALE person but somewhat still normal for women with regards to red blood cell amount while the Hemoglobin count is still quite low to my liking and it all needs to improve. But good news, I will be getting free injections of EPO and will definitely correct these numbers in the coming weeks. Anyway the injections of EPOs are not necessarily "free", it is just that they are already being paid for by the new and improved funding by Philhealth which actually has more than 500 billion PHP in reserved funds which actually enough for them to either reduce the premium payment cost to members of Philhealth or they would give more benefits to its members. So in this example where they decided to solved the long-standing problem of financial difficulties of dialysis patients with their copay issues along with solving some of their medical needs by adjusting the benefit package by raising on what the patients get for each dialysis treatment that they would undergo which as mentioned, allowed them not to take cash out of pocket and get an improvement with regards to getting a much needed EPO injections along with blood work free of charge. The already well funded Philhealth is also being supported by my government's games and gambling service (PAGCOR) and lottery business (Lotto) and these three government corporations had made it all possible because there three of them already has lots of funds always ready for disposal. For me as a beneficiary, of course I am more than happy because I get to save some of my money, we do not have to worry about paying anymore, my quality if life will definitely be raised because of the free of charge EPO injections, we can buy more fruits that we need to eat, then my mother will never be stressed-out anymore from trying to request for financial support to different politicians anymore as well. It is all dream come true and I never had felt the best sigh of relief ever, thanks a million to God and to the people which made this all possible and like one dialysis patient had said, "it is now free to live."
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