KARACHI: The Prime Minister should immediately act to bring down the medicines’ prices in the country to ensure their availability to underprivileged people who have been facing acute problems in getting access to quality healthcare services. This was one of the consensus demands by the speakers who addressed the 4th Pakistan Healthcare Summit-2021, organised by Consumers’ Association of Pakistan (CAP) at local hotel.
The speakers demanded the government to immediately intervene to curtail the prices of life-saving drugs in the country so that they could be purchased by the patients belonging to middle and lower income groups. They said the medicine prices should be slashed, keeping in view skyrocketing inflation in the country owing to which, people had a hard time finding quality health care services.
They demanded strict enforcement of the recently issued code of ethics of Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) to regulate relations between the pharmaceutical companies and doctors so as to discourage the trend of giving incentives to doctors to prescribe particular medicines to their patients.
They said the drug manufacturers should be taken to the task by the government in accordance with the newly notified rules of the DRAP for offering undue favours to the doctors for prescribing to their patients the medicines produced by these companies.
They urged the medical practitioners to fully adhere to the general code of ethics of their profession to make sure that every ailing citizen in the country gets access to the best health treatment services in an honourable way.
The speakers, most of whom were associated with the health profession, also demanded of the government to readily issue health insurance cards in Sindh to treat underprivileged patients who have no other means to get access to quality healthcare services. They said the destitute people in Sindh should get the facility of health insurance cards as was the case of people in Punjab and Khyber Pakthunkhwa.
Speaking as the chief guest, Chairman of Higher Education Commission Sindh Dr Asim Hussain said that the government should give more attention to different fields of healthcare services.
He said it was unfortunate that health and medical services had remained neglected fields in Pakistan. He said that getting best healthcare services was the fundamental right of every citizen. He praised the effort on the part of the organisers of the conference to raise awareness about health care issues.
Dr Hussain, who also earlier served as an Advisor to PM, said the industries had to suffer much due to corona virus health emergency. He also eulogised the nationwide efforts to tackle the issue of corona virus. He appreciated the services of healthcare professionals and workers who valiantly fought against the spread of corona virus. The CAP Chairman, Kaukab Iqbal, said that their association had been striving hard to protect the rights of consumers.
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