The Department of Health (DOH) will demand restitution from Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation if it is proven to have tampered with the production date of its medical-grade face shields.
During the public address of President Rodrigo R. Duterte last Monday, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said he already ordered the DOH’s Procurement and Supply Chain Management Department to reinspect the face shields.
This after a Pharmally executive and warehouse worker admitted in a Senate hearing that they altered the production date of the face shield, which they sold to the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM), on behalf of DOH, from 2020 to 2021.
Duque said if the said pronouncement is proven true, he said they will ask Pharamally to return a portion paid by the government to it for the face shield.
He explained the medical grade face-shield is supposed to last for three years before the foam and the garter it contains deteriorates.
But with the tampered manufacturing date, it could only last two years before the quality of the headgear degrades.
“So for example the production date was tampered from 2020 to 2021, there must be a restitution to the government in the price of the face shield for that year subject of the tamper,” Duque said.
In a related development, Duque said they also started their investigation on the reported cases of false positive results in the swab test conducted by the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) and the Medical City in Clark on several novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients.
He said the will likely come out with the result of the probe of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) on the said case by Oct. 8, 2021.
Duterte ordered several investigations of PRC and its chairman Senator Richard “Dick” Gordon as the lawmaker leading the Senate Blue Ribbon committee continues its probe on the alleged anomalies on the PS-DBM procurement of medical supplies from Pharmally worth P42-billion.
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