Cured of my disease I died of medicines!

Pricing of most of the medicines is a very complex issue. And prices of only a certain number of medicines are controlled under DPCO.At present the DPCO 2013 contains 680 scheduled drug formulations spread across 27 therapeutic groups, which effectively comes to 628 scheduled drug formulations if we net those appearing in more than one therapeutic group. The antibacterial group contains B-Lactam, quinolones, cotrimaxazole, macrolides and amikacin.

Notable exclusions are piperacillin and Tazobactum combination, meropenem, tagicillin etc, which are 3 hot cakes in current hospital based practice, specially in intensive care units. And it is here that a patient has to really pay very high price both colloquially and literally. Big hospitals, corporate and non-corporate, get their special brands either manufactured or purchased with the MRP printed at their own sweet will. Piperacillin and Tazobactum combination is sold at upwards of Rs.700 in these hospitals by brand names which will not be available anywhere outside the internal pharmacy even if the patient is lucky to get a prescription,more often than not, the patient gets the medicines automatically at bed sides, and more so if the patient is in ICU where the relatives have limited access. The same combination is available outside, mind you not the generic of some dubious manufacturer, but a good quality product for only Rs.200/. If a patient needs 4-5 vials a day, which is the usual requirement of an adult patient, it simply means an unnecessary expenditure of Rs. 2500-3000 per day. If the treating doctor decides to use Meropenem, the plight of the patient gets even worse and the gulf between internal pharmacy and one outside in comparable matched quality brands could translate into an additional burden every day of Rs. 6000 upwards. There is absolute lack of transparency in the number and items of consumables which are exorbitantly priced  and which are supposedly used for the patients and they are again grossly over billed. This the hapless  patient may never come to know and realize unless he is very discerning or the patient happens to be a close relative of a doctor. 

The hospitals definitely offer a "humanitarian" service to the kith and keen in distress. But under the unsaid, unwritten compulsion to buy the medicines from internal pharmacy is the fear that is inculcated in to the patients regarding the uncertainty of quality of outside medicine and in an event of adverse reaction, not owning the responsibility, such doctrine obviously presupposes that quality drugs are available only internally ( how so ever dubious their manufacturer may be) and second the hospital will own up the responsibility of an untoward event if such an event were to occur! Both look like patent falsifications.

The cancer of uncontrolled pricing pervades far more deeper than what appears on the surface. It painfully affects hosts of people fighting the menace of malignancy.  The anti cancer drug Temozolamide sells at Rs. 23795 for 5 capsules by one particular company and this medicine is supplied at Rs. 5000 for 5 capsules to the Hospitals and doctors.  A profit of almost 500%, we know that human greed is limitless, but this even goes beyond the limits of limitless.

What are the remedial measures. One, that the patient should have absolute freedom to buy medicines from the place of his choice, the hospitals should be instructed to display notices to this effect( I have filed a petition at www.change.org to generate public awareness and to draw the attention of the decision makers.) This is going to be a minuscule effort, because the managers of these hospitals will have many cards up their sleeves.

What could have a far reaching impact is to urge the policy makers to further widen the net of price controlling and to bring in its purview all injectable antibiotics, all anti cancers drugs and all consumables related to intravenous line fixations, attachments and fluids.

Click the link below and kindly  read my petition. If you wish to be a part of the change please sign this and pass on to your friends and colleagues. Thanks. 
https://www.change.org/p/ministry-of-health-and-family-planning-goi-allow-patients-to-buy-medicines-from-outside-the-internal-pharmacy-of-a-hospital?recruiter=67011829&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink