Essential Drugs Committee on Tuesday sought report from experts on measures for availability of essential drugs in public sector hospitals and clinics, drugs pricing and quality control mechanism of essential drugs procedures in 45 days. It also sought to identify weaknesses in drug registration and licensing besides recommending measures for incorporating essential drugs as part of medical education in the country.
Talking to Business Recorder, secretary of the 'Committee on Essential Drug', Jaweed Akhtar who is also a senior advisor of the Federal Ombudsman' secretariat said that three sub-committees have been constituted in order to address the issues relating to availability of high standard essential drugs at affordable price in Pakistan. Akhtar informed that in maiden meeting of the Essential Drugs Committee, its Chairman, Lieutenant General Mahmood Ahmad Akhtar(retired) (former Surgeon General of Pakistan Army), has formed three sub-committees of Professor Brigadier Dr Muzammil Hassan Najmi (retired), Dr Inamul Haq and Professor Dr Shabbir Ahmad Lehri asking them to submit report in the stipulated time.
Later, in a press release issued by the Federal Ombudsman secretariat Islamabad it was expressed that Lieutenant General Mahmood Ahmad Akhtar (Retd), Chairman of Essential Drugs Committee has constituted three Sub-Committees with the following tasks assigned separately to its members and to submit the report within 45 days:- i-Professor Brigadier Dr Muzammil Hassan Najmi (Retd), Convenor for recommending:-Measures for availability of Essential Drugs at the public sector hospitals and clinics. Drugs pricing mechanism. ii-Dr Inamul Haq, Convenor for recommending: Quality Control Mechanism of essential drugs procedures.-Identifying weaknesses in drug registration and licensing. iii-Professor Dr Shabbir Ahmad Lehri, Convenor for recommending measures for incorporating Essential Drugs as part of medical education.
"It may be recalled that Federal Ombudsman, M Salman Faruqui taking cognisance for non implementation of Essential Drugs Scheme had recently constituted a 13 Members Committee of all stakeholders to address the issues relating to availability of essential drugs, having high standards in terms of efficacy, safety and quality at affordable price", it stated.
While addressing to the Committee the acting Wafaqi Mohtasib Abdur Rauf Chaudhry emphasised on the need of availability of essential drugs at affordable prices to the public at large. He also stressed on the need for optimal utilisation of pharmaceutical potential in the country. During the meeting current situation relating to the availability of Essential Drugs in public and private sectors, reasons for not fully implementation of the Essential Drug Scheme was identified, suggestions were made to the mechanism for prompt implementation of Essential Drugs Scheme with timelines and aspects of strategy formulation for inclusion of Essential Drugs in the medical syllabus were discussed.
The Chairman of the Committee highlighted that the health indicators of the Pakistan are not encouraging when compared with other SAARC member countries. He also stressed that immediate steps need to be taken for availability of essential drugs in the country to provide the health services at affordable cost.
Jaweed Akhter, Senior Advisor, Wafaqi Mohtasib (Ombudsman)'s Secretariat and Secretary of the Committee gave a detailed presentation highlighting the need for availability of essential drugs, having high standards in terms of efficacy, safety and quality at affordable price for all.
Muhammad Ayub Sheikh, Federal Secretary Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation and Co-ordination informed the Committee that government is making all out efforts to implement the essential drugs scheme and has recently entered into joint consultation with support from USAID and WHO for finalising the list of national essential drugs list. He further said that the pricing policy has been revised in consultation with all stake holders and the procedural complications have been streamlined.
Professor Dr Shabbir Ahmad Lehri, President, Pakistan Medical and Dental Council drew the attention of the meeting that the prices of essential drugs needs to be rationalised to ensure the availability of essential drugs as the alternative imported drugs for same treatment are expensive and majority of poor patients cannot afford to buy expensive drugs.
The Pharmaceutical sectors representatives inter-alia pointed out the need for formulating conducive policies for pharmaceutical business to ensure availability of essential drugs at affordable price, address issues relating to supply of drugs to the chemist and druggist shops throughout the country and enforcement of quality control mechanism, processing time of registration of drugs needs to be reduced, and pricing be rationalised in order to ensure availability of quality drugs. Other participants of the meeting were Imtiaz Inayat Elahi, Dr Muhammad Aslam, Yasin Malik, Muhammad Zaka, Khalid Mehmood, Kazim Hussain, Ayesha Tammy, Dr Imran Khan, Asif Aziz Akhai and Hamid Raza.
Comments
Comments are closed.