Doctors' alliance seeks trade policy for pharma products

Minna Zutshi

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 17

Ludhiana may be the industrial city where the affluent class prefers high-end hospitals offering five-star treatment. But for the vast majority, high medicine prices and poor affordability are the core healthcare issues. The Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare (ADEH) today urged the government to streamline the price of medicines and other medical appliances on the pattern of coronary stents and orthopaedic implants. The core committee of the ADEH said that a trade policy for pharmaceutical products should be formulated. 

The ADEH members, Dr GS Grewal, former president of the Punjab Medical Council (PMC), and Dr Arun Mitra, former chairman of the Ethical Committee of the PMC and senior vice-president of the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD), said they had submitted a detailed document regarding the prices of various types of implants and medicines to the chairman of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) on June 29, who, in turn, recommended reduction of prices of orthopaedic implants. Several organisations, including the ADEH, All-India Drug Action Network (AIDAN) and the IDPD, had been campaigning for price reduction of pharma products for a long time and it was after the court order on the PIL filed by advocate Birender Sangwan that the government was forced to reduce the stent prices in February this year. This set the ball rolling and the movement for price reduction gained momentum. 

Committee reviews medicine prices, government yet to make the report public

According to Dr Grewal and Dr Mitra, the government has formed a committee to review the medicine prices. The committee, it is learnt, recommended substantial reduction in prices of medicines but the government is not making the report public. They demanded that this report be made public immediately.

The closure of pharmaceutical public-sector units such as IDPL, HAL etc. is a setback because these units produced cheap bulk drugs not only for India but also for other countries. The government should strengthen its units if price reduction has to be ultimately made effective, said the ADEH members. 

Stents: Monitoring system sought

On the reports that the benefits of the reduction of stent prices have not reached the end user because the institutions have increased their procedure charges, the ADEH members, Dr GS Grewal and Dr Arun Mitra, demanded that a monitoring system be evolved by the government to check this malpractice.