Government proposes free supply of essential medicines: Azad

The government has proposed free supply of essential medicines to the needy through public health facilities across the country in order to reduce the high costs of medicines and make health care affordable to the common man, minister of health and family welfare Gulam Nabi Azad said today.

This initiative will promote rational use of medicines and reduce the consumption of inessential, unscientific and hazardous medicines Azad told a conference on health and medicines at Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Addressing a conference on `Responsible Use of Medicines' Azad said responsible and rational use of medicines is a crucial part of the national health policy and access to medicines is one of the vital tools needed to improve and maintain health.

Since ensuring availability of affordable medicines is the responsibility of the state, a fine balance has to be maintained between the private sector, which operates on the demands of the market and the responsibility of the state for ensuring a positive benefit risk profile of available medicines, he said.

He said the out-of-pocket expenditure on health in India is very high, and a larger part of that is on medicines. He said it is necessary to ensure that healthcare administrators adhere to standard treatment guidelines while at the same time curbing unethical promotion of medicines by drug manufacturers.

He also stressed the importance of better regulatory control over prescription and dispensing of medicine and also making the consumer aware the hazards of self medication.
 
India, Azad said, is facing an increasing threat of anti-microbial resistance. To tackle the threat and also to promote rational and responsible use of antibiotics in India, the ministry of health and family welfare has developed the National Policy for Containment of Anti Microbial Resistance which aims at prudent use of antibiotics, prevention of emergence of drug resistance and prevention of spread of transmission of resistant bacteria, the minister added.