The next morning, before the sun came up, I hopped on my flight to Cebu. When I arrived I messaged the girl I had come to see and told her that I was going to catch a taxi into Cebu City and hit up a physician and get a morphine prescription. I had such a strange feeling as that city is where my ex-wife lives and has lived since running away with her lover.
I had plenty of Oxycodone, Dihydrocodeinone, Promethazine and Diazepam- not to mention the bottles of methadone that I still had. However I just needed time to let it sink in, being back in Cebu, acclimating and all. It is difficult to find a physician who can even write prescriptions for controlled substances as I have discussed at length in previous posts. It costs doctors there a pretty penny to even get the liscence which is needed on an annual basis, and then there is the fact that not very many Filipinos can even afford controlled substances. For example, a locally produced morphine is the least expencive. 3 grammes in the form of one hundred 30mg Instant Release (IR) hypodermic microdots costs about $70.00 US. The Philippines doesnt really have a middle class to speak of but that price is a month's wages for the poor that constitute the bulk of the over country's population. So, for analgesia they rely upon garbage like Lyrica or even Nabulphine. In the countryside they even utilise Anti Psychotic medications as they did with my former mother in law when she was horribly burned.
On weekends. and holidays it is a relatively simple endeavour. Because the hospital has an oncology section the ER always has an intern or resident with the necessary liscence. My experience has been that if I go in there and explain that I live on Mindanao and have run out of medication they will quickly and politely write me a prescription for any amount up to 100 tablets. Going there at 10AM on a weekday howevever it is an entirely different story...To be continued...
I had plenty of Oxycodone, Dihydrocodeinone, Promethazine and Diazepam- not to mention the bottles of methadone that I still had. However I just needed time to let it sink in, being back in Cebu, acclimating and all. It is difficult to find a physician who can even write prescriptions for controlled substances as I have discussed at length in previous posts. It costs doctors there a pretty penny to even get the liscence which is needed on an annual basis, and then there is the fact that not very many Filipinos can even afford controlled substances. For example, a locally produced morphine is the least expencive. 3 grammes in the form of one hundred 30mg Instant Release (IR) hypodermic microdots costs about $70.00 US. The Philippines doesnt really have a middle class to speak of but that price is a month's wages for the poor that constitute the bulk of the over country's population. So, for analgesia they rely upon garbage like Lyrica or even Nabulphine. In the countryside they even utilise Anti Psychotic medications as they did with my former mother in law when she was horribly burned.
On weekends. and holidays it is a relatively simple endeavour. Because the hospital has an oncology section the ER always has an intern or resident with the necessary liscence. My experience has been that if I go in there and explain that I live on Mindanao and have run out of medication they will quickly and politely write me a prescription for any amount up to 100 tablets. Going there at 10AM on a weekday howevever it is an entirely different story...To be continued...
