The Hindu : Karnataka News : Change in patent law will not hit drug prices: Minister

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 19, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

Change in patent law will not hit drug prices: Minister

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, JAN. 18. The ratification of WTO conditionalities and India's switch from process patent to product patent through legislation will have no impact on the prices of essential drugs, as 90 per cent of them are out of the patent coverage, the Union Health Minister, Anbumani Ramadoss, said here today.

Speaking to presspersons after participating in the ninth convocation of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), of which he is President, Dr. Ramadoss said: "There is no need for any apprehension on these grounds."

Initiatives

Dr. Ramadoss said that accreditation in the healthcare system, a monitoring mechanism to ensure implementation of programmes and promoting health tourism are on the cards. Many initiatives are being considered to keep up with the rapid changes in medical and healthcare education sector and ensure convergence for the benefit of the public.

Dr. Ramadoss said he has streamlined the human resource factor within the Ministry. Instead of two secretaries to look after health and family welfare, the ministry now has only one. In an attempt to encourage public-private partnership in healthcare delivery, the Ministry was appointing chartered accountants, consultants in information technology and in healthcare management, for audit and evaluation of programmes, particularly in the rural areas.

In his address at the convocation, Dr Ramadoss said while eight per cent of the population suffered from various degrees of mental disorders, lack of awareness, and poor accessibility to care and cure was a fact that India was living with. With 800 neurologists in the country who served mostly the urban population (which is only 20 per cent of the population), there is an urgent need to widen the human resource pool in mental healthcare.

Dr. Ramadoss said trauma of all kinds was the highest killer in the country. He had mooted the idea of trauma care centres on highways and in the rural areas across the country, and even a trauma care cess is being contemplated, he said.

Stem cell research was the emerging new field of study and India needed all the trained minds it could get for taking the benefits of research to the people. "So don't take your degrees and wing your way out of the country", he told the students graduating today.

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