The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Patients feel the pinch

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 04, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Patients feel the pinch

N.J. Nair

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The gradual but steady increase in the price of many life-saving allopathic medicines coupled with inflation has had a debilitating impact on the domestic budget of the common man.

The price increase of medicines over the past three years went unnoticed till inflation reached an unprecedented level during the past few months. Diabetes and cancer patients are those who have started feeling the pinch of the hike.

The cost of a refill pack of human insulin for diabetes ranges between Rs.350 and Rs.800. Similarly, injections for cancer cost Rs.40,000 to Rs.1.07 lakh. Prices of antibiotics and drugs purchased over-the-counter like those for common cold and other minor ailments too have been going up steadily for the past three years.

Costly substitutes are being promoted at the expense of affordable medicines that were widely used till recently. Diabetes patients are being persuaded to discard bovine insulin costing Rs.45 for the expensive ones using novel marketing techniques. Most of the essential commodities can be substituted or be totally relinquished once they become unaffordable, but the patients have no option except meekly accepting the hike for survival.

Lack of a price control monitoring mechanism to ensure that the drug prices are fixed in proportion to their production cost has been pointed out as the main reasons for the increase of prices on the sly.

“The actual production cost of medicines continues to be a mystery for the government as well as the doctors and patients. Manufacturers offer substantial margin to the wholesale and retail dealers and fix the retail price according to their will. Ultimately the consumer has to bear the burden,” says Kerala Medical and Sales Representatives Association president Kallara Madhu.

A wholesale distributor who procures 100 refill packs of insulin gets about 30 to 50 packs as an incentive. He may pass on 10 or 20 packs down the retail network which again earns a substantial profit. Medicines are being sold at affordable rates through the outlets attached to the government hospitals by selling stock supplied as incentive. Since such outlets are few in number, the benefit has been limited to a miniscule minority.

Effective government intervention has been mooted to save the poor from the clutches of exploitation. Life-saving drugs should be exempted from the tax net and pricing medicines at affordable rates should be made a right of the common man.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala