The interim government has taken a landmark decision to reduce the medical expenses of the common people of the country. According to the new decision, 295 medicines have been listed as ‘essential’, the prices of which will be fixed directly by the government.
In a news briefing held at the Foreign Service Academy on Thursday (January 8) afternoon, the Special Assistant Professor of the Chief Adviser Dr. Md. Saidur Rahman. He said that the new guidelines regarding the list and pricing of national essential medicines have been approved in the meeting of the advisory council.
Dr. Sayedur Rahman said, since this list was not updated for a long time after the drug policy of 1982, the price of more than 1300 drugs in the market went beyond the affordability of common people. As a result of this new initiative by the government, 136 more drugs have been added to the earlier list of 117 essential drugs. In total, the number of essential medicines is currently 295.
Dr. Saidur Rahman said that two-thirds of the health expenditure in Bangladesh is spent on buying medicines. Although developed countries have various health insurance or government benefits, we do not have the same in our country. In this situation there was no option but state intervention to keep the price of medicine within the affordability of the people. From now on, the government will fix the prices of all the listed essential drugs and no one will be able to sell the drugs at more than the fixed price.
It was informed in the briefing that those who are currently selling medicines at prices higher than this fixed price, will have to come down to the government rate gradually. The main aim of this initiative is to reduce the huge cost of medicines from people’s private pockets. Chief Adviser’s Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam and Deputy Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad and other officials were present in the press conference. This decision is expected to have a positive impact on public health services.