Govt to pay for some men's Viagra

[Ulhas Joglekar]

> 26 November 1999
>
> Govt to pay for some men's Viagra
> Though certainly not averse to more sex, some Colombians are surprised by
a
> high court ruling that requires the government to pay for some men's
Viagra.
> State-run health services must reimburse men needing the pill for
impotence
> due to chronic or terminal diseases, the constitutional court decreed in a
> ruling last week that went largely unnoticed.
> On Wednesday, however, a leading newspaper columnist questioned whether
> providing the expensive pills is really a legitimate priority in a country
> where the public health system is so overburdened that patients often have
> to provide their own syringes.
> ``A country with Colombia's high poverty rates can't just decide out of
the
> blue that sexual disfunction is a matter of life or death,'' Maria Jimena
> Duzan wrote in El Espectador. ``People die of gangrene after amputations,
so
> it's a little exaggerated to put in the same category men who can't get it
> up.''
> State health officials, meanwhile, said having to cover subscriptions for
> Viagra and other costly drugs could divert resources away from attending
> poor patients or even drive the troubled health system into bankruptcy.
> The pills made by Pfizer Inc. sell here in boxes of two for the equivalent
> of about $15. The drug was first approved in Colombia in August 1998, and
> the company estimates about a million pills have been sold to some 30,000
> men.
> Ruling on a lawsuit by a man whose doctor prescribed Viagra for
> diabetes-related impotence, Colombia's highest court last Thursday
> authorized payment for Viagra in such cases, saying it was upholding
> Colombians' right to a normal sex life.
> But Duzan said many couples could restore their sex lives through better
> communication and by incorporating more adventure into their
> encounters.``Men of the court,'' she wrote. ``Sexuality isn't measured by
> Viagra alone.''(AP)
>  For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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> Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. 1999.
>