Expressing concern over the fact that merely 74 essential drugs have been put under the price regulation system, a parliamentary committee has termed this figure as “pathetic”. Noting that many doctors with “ulterior motives” issue prescription of “irrational and useless drugs,” the committee has asked Centre to include more essential and life saving drugs under price regulation.
“The committee is shocked to note that despite there being irrefutable evidence of a strong link between high prices of medicines and poverty as also despite the fact that the eleventh five year plan one of the avowed objectives is to include all essential drugs under a system of price regulation, the number of drugs under price control still remains at a pathetic 74,” the committee in its report has mentioned.
The committee, which had taken note of issues relating to availability of generic, generic-branded and branded medicines, also took into consideration that prices of many drugs are “highly inflated with no relation to their costs”. Pointing that despite rules forbidding doctors from accepting gifts from healthcare industry, there is “no let up in this evil practice and the pharma companies continue to sponsor foreign trips of doctors and shower with gifts to obliging prescribes who then prescribe drugs as quid pro quo,” the committee mentioned that “all these expenses get added up to the cost of drugs.”