The federal government plans to streamline purchase of medicines for all government hospitals worth billions of rupees to control wastage and pilferage, federal health secretary Syed Anwar Mahmood told Business Recorder here on Sunday. He said that the federal health ministry has sent a proposal to the provincial governments for their comments with regard to purchase of more than 800 medicines which are generally used in the federal and provincial government hospitals.
Under the proposal, the federal government will invite quotations from the reputable pharmaceutical firms to quote their price of a medicine under its generic instead of their brand name for bulk supply with special marking on the packing "for government hospitals only".
The health secretary was confident that this transparent method of purchase of medicines will increase the supply of medicines by at least 60 percent in all government hospitals with the same budgetary allocations and eliminate pilferage and other corrupt practices in the health sector.
Syed Anwar Mahmood said that it must be appreciated that despite price hike of other commodities, the government has not allowed increase in the prices of medicines during the past three years.
He said that the Pakistani pharmaceutical companies are now manufacturing medicines worth $1.25 billion annually.
A research of Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) says that drugs are the essential tool for preventive, curative and rehabilitative health care. The number and type of drugs is constantly increasing while the financial resources for health care services in general remain limited.
In India alone, there are more than 100,000 registered drugs available in the market whereas in Pakistan we have more than 28,000 registered drugs. The amount spent on buying medicine is very large and up to 60 percent of entire public sector health budget of any country goes into buying medicines.
The report says that despite heavy spendings one third of world population lacks access to essential medicines. A major reason for this adverse situation is the mismanagement of available resources and according to one estimate up to 70 percent of resources go waste in any country due to poor drug management systems.
The report said that in Pakistan a significant portion of this precious commodity is wasted due to wrong procurements and poor storage or incorrect dispensing practices. Another important contributor towards this wastage is irrational use of drugs by prescribes from primary to tertiary level health care facilities. To fill up this gap judicious management of drug systems is mandatory.
Therefore rational drug management has become an increasingly important topic in order to make optimal use of the drug budget to offer health services of the highest possible standard.
The report said that inadequate availability of medicines at health facilities and poor healthcare is a real problem for the health care manager and the patient alike.
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