The country's drug market has been marked by price edginess for at least a couple of years. This has been further aggravated by infiltration of spurious medicines. To make the matter even worse, the draft national drug policy submitted to the health ministry way back in November, 2012 has been rendered useless on account of a court case against it, in which the plaintiff got the verdict in his favour. According to a report carried in a Bangla national daily, a circle in the drug administration department deliberately bypassed a member of the draft-policy formulation committee -one who significantly is from the pharmaceutical society. When he came to know about the submission of the draft policy to the health ministry, he took the matter to the court. Both the lower court and the High Court gave verdicts in his favour. Thus the draft policy has been rendered an exercise in futility.
It seems the drug manufacturers have taken full advantage of this reversal suffered by the authorities. Sure enough, the drug market had been jittery since before the attempt was made to bring some order in pharmaceutical business. In fact, spurious drugs flooded the market, life-saving drugs were priced arbitrarily through creating artificial crisis, food supplements sold randomly without any guidelines. Because of the court case, no move could be taken to stop the anarchy and the pharmaceutical companies had no problem going with their ways during this period. Prices of most medicines have shot up abnormally over the past couple of years. Now the life-saving drugs have price tags well beyond the purchasing capacity of poor and lower middle-class people. On top of this, the manufacturers of spurious drugs and pushers of time-barred medicines have become extra-active in the absence of any policy framework.
So, the process has to be started all over again. It is understood that the court order is not so much on the merit of the draft drug policy as it is on the flawed process in which one of its key members was left out deliberately. Now the question is, who are those people in the drug administration department responsible for the debacle? It should not be a monumental task to identify those people and mete out the punishment they deserve. If this is not done, who knows what tricks they have up their sleeves when the next move for a fresh drug policy is taken? The Augean stable should be cleaned so that they are not left with any further opportunity to sabotage such a good move. By this time, the draft policy could have come into force after necessary vetting by various bodies and institutions concerned.
Admittedly, the draft policy that has become dysfunctional can still be extensively used as a source for a new one. But first of all, the authorities should start the ball rolling right now. Any policy, of necessity, is made up-to-date with time. The basic framework is likely to remain intact because so far as it is known, experts from various areas were involved with the process. There was an attempt to collect all possible information in order to make the policy up-to-date after 2005. Its follow-up over the past year would be enough for the purpose. In that draft policy the list of the life-saving medicines has become a little longer from the earlier 209 to 254. The list was prepared through addition of new ones and subtracting a few old ones too. What is novel about the invalid draft policy is that side by side the list of essential drugs, unani, ayurvedic and homeopath medicines have been given their due importance.
Now the important thing is to start the process. If further delay occurs, no one knows how the chaos in the drug market will affect the health sector. Unrestrained medicine price will exact a price on public health. Experts in medicare believe that framing of stringent law is the answer to the problem of arbitrary price rise of medicines. If the policy segments and legal provisions are not complementary to each, there is little hope that the policy will give the nation the expected benefits. There is a law for controlling prices of drugs but the drug administration department has no power to control the same. These are areas where things have to be streamlined in order to reach the benefit of any drug policy that may be introduced here.
To transform the industry-friendly drug policy into a patient-friendly one, the authorities will have miles to go. They will have to bring under close scrutiny such things as the import of raw materials for drugs, manufacture of medicine, establishment of pharmaceutical plants, marketing, guidelines for sale of medicines with or without prescription, export and publication of gazette. If there is a system for checking the invoice of imported raw materials and prepared drugs, the retail prices can easily be fixed. So far as the life-saving drugs are concerned, their price has to be stringently controlled. It is complained that there are essential medicines which the country does not produce and their import too is illegal. If such is the case, a list should be prepared for allowing their legal import. There is no point getting rigid on issues relating to human health. Whether it is food supplement or medicine, the important thing is to ensure their proper use. A national drug policy should include do's and don'ts on every aspect of pharmaceutical business and use of drugs. Only then can the menace of spurious medicines be done away with.
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