Committee’s recommendation accepted; implementation soon

Srinagar, Mar 15: The Jammu and Kashmir government is mulling a new drug policy wherein only selected medicines catering to 90 per cent of diseases would be made available in all government hospitals under a standardized prescription system.
 Sources told Greater Kashmir that under the new policy selected medicines would be purchased in bulk from a chosen multi-national pharmaceutical company to be made available in all the hospitals.
 Sources said a committee which had been set up for working out the new policy, at par with various south Indian states, has submitted its report to the government.
 “So far hospitals used to purchase same medicines from various companies and most of these medicines were unnecessary. But under the new policy the drugs chosen as per the World health Organization guidelines will be purchased from a single standard company by the state and then made available in the hospitals,” they said.
 Sources said the committee has recommended 383 drugs which have been categorized into three groups.  Of those, sources said, 226 drugs were the ones which could be used in the treatment of 90 per cent of the disease and would be necessarily made available in all hospitals; 79, including 18 drugs for cancer treatment, were on complimentary list which could be purchased on demand by any hospital; and 28 were basic vaccines like BCG and others.
 Sources said the committee had recommended that the medicines should be purchased from a single MNC instead of small pharmaceutical companies to maintain quality of the drugs.
 “In present drug policy the drugs are purchased keeping in mind the cheap rates and not the quality of the medicine. But under the new policy government will have to choose the MNC which can provide comparatively cheap and best drugs,” they said.
 Under the new policy, sources said, the doctors in government hospitals would have to prescribe the medicines as per the generic names instead of the brand names.
 “Like instead of writing Crocin, which is Paracetamol manufacturing company, the doctor will have to write Paracetmol in the prescription. And the patient will be provided the Paracetamol of whichever company will be available in the hospital.”
 Sources, however, said the report was only the first part of the policy which had been prepared after a year’s ground work in both regions of the state.
 “The list of medicines has been prepared keeping in view the requirement of medicines in Jammu and in Kashmir.”
 In the second phase of the policy, the committee will be working on standard treatment protocol in the hospitals.
 “Under this system a specific disease will be given same treatment in all wards of the hospital which is not the case this time. We are working at this system in SMHS this time because it is one of the premier healthcare centers in the Valley.  Around 60 diseases are under consideration for the protocol,” they said.
 Sources, however, said the new policy demands better infrastructure, storage facilities for the drugs, properly trained surplus staff and monitoring system “which the government will have to consider for implementation of the recommendations.”
 Health minister Sham Lal Sharma said the government had approved the recommendations and it would be implemented within a month a two.
 “We are waiting for objections from public and we will implement on one or two months,” he said.
 Asked whether the policy needs specific budgetary allocations or infrastructure development, he said: “That isn’t a constraint.”

Lastupdate on : Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 IST