(Publish from Houston Texas USA)
(By Muhammad Mansoor Mumtaz Lahore)
The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) has almost abolished the system of control over medicine prices. Government control over more than 90 percent of medicine prices has been removed, as a result of which medicine prices are increasing day by day.
Earlier, for any increase in medicine prices, it was necessary to get approval from DRAP, due to which effective control over prices was maintained. The federal government and DRAP used to jointly approve the increase in medicine prices, so that unnecessary burden was not imposed on the public.
But in the current government, medicines have been divided into “essential” and “non-essential”. Essential medicines, which constitute only ten percent of the total medicines, are still priced by DRAP, while all control over the prices of non-essential medicines, which account for more than ninety percent, has been removed and pharmaceutical companies have been given free rein to set arbitrary prices.
Due to this decision, the pockets of the public are being robbed uncontrollably. The prices of medicines are increasing day and night and crores of rupees are being made in profit. The owners of various companies are getting salaries and profits worth lakhs and crores of rupees, and all this burden is being taken directly from the pockets of the public.
On this serious situation, Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) President Professor Shahid Malik has demanded that the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Chief Justice of Pakistan and the Chief Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court take immediate notice of this matter and restore the old system of setting medicine prices, so that no medical company can set medicine prices at will or increase them arbitrarily.
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