PHM-Exch> India: Free medicines for all from October

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Gopal Dabade <drdabade at gmail.com>


h
ttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Free-medicines-for-all-from-October/articleshow/14347633.cms<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Free-medicines-for-all-from-October/articleshow/14347633.cms>

*Free medicines for all from October*

Kounteya Sinha, TNN | Jun 23, 2012, 01.51AM IST



NEW DELHI: India's ambitious policy to provide free medicines to all
patients attending a government health facility across the country will be
rolled out from October.

Strongly backed by Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Manmohan-Singh>
 himself, the free-medicines-for-all scheme — being referred to as the
"real game changer" — has received its first financial allocation
from the Planning
Commission <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Planning-Commission> for
2012-13.

At present, the public sector provides healthcare to 22% of the country's
population.

The ministry estimates that this will increase to 52% by 2017 once
medicines are provided for free .

The ministry has sent the National List of Essential Medicines, 2011, (348
drugs which includes anti-AIDS, analgesics, anti-ulcers, anti psychotic,
sedatives, anesthetic agents, lipid lowering agents, steroids and anti
platelet drugs) to all the states to use as reference.

The states, however, have been asked to create their own Essential Drugs
List (EDL), keeping in mind the diseases that worst affect them. Around 75%
of the funds under the scheme will be borne by the Centre, while the rest
will be the state's responsibility.

Around 5% of the district funds will be allowed to be used to purchase
drugs outside the EDL. The Cabinet has approved the setting up of a Central
Procurement Agency<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Central-Procurement-Agency>
 (CPA) for bulk procurement of drugs.

The PMO has asked the ministry to set up the CPA as early as possible. At
present, 78% of the entire health expenditure in India is from out of
pocket (OOP). Purchasing drugs alone accounts for 72% of this OOP
expenditure.

They have also been asked to devise standard treatment protocols in order
to avoid unnecessary and irrational treatments.

The states will procure drugs directly from manufacturer or importer
through an open tender. Companies applying for the tenders will have to
have GMP compliance certificate, a no conviction certificate and should
have a specified annual turnover. The drugs must carry a not-for-sale label
printed on the packaging.

A district-level state-of-the-art warehouse will have to be set up by
states to store the drugs and a passport driven system will move the
medicines to district hospitals, CHCs and PHCs will then send the drugs to
the sub centres.

It is being made mandatory for all doctors in the public sector to
prescribe generic drugs and salt names and not brands. Action will be taken
against doctors found prescribing brands.

A Planning Commission panel had said drug prices have shot up by 40%
between 1996 and 2006. It said that during the same period the price of
controlled drugs rose by 0.02%, while those in the EDL increased by 15%.
The price of drugs that were neither under price control, nor under the EDL
grew by 137%.

The Commission says 39 million Indians are pushed to poverty because of ill
health every year. Around 30% in rural India didn't go for any treatment
for financial constraints in 2004. In urban areas, 20% of ailments were
untreated for financial problems the same year. About 47% and 31% of
hospital admissions in rural and urban India, respectively, were financed
by loans and sale of assets.

Outpatient expenditure  increased from 30.63% to 46.16%. Catastrophic
spending, or percentage of households spending more than 10% of their
overall income on healthcare, is nearly 15% in states that have insurance
in place as against 11% in states that lack such policies

http://aidanindia.wordpress.com/
www.daf-k.cjb.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20120623/64addd28/attachment.html>