‘Time to introduce delivery mechanism for medicine’

SIBU: The government is urged to work out an effective mechanism to deliver medicine to patients following the move to reduce the supply of medicine from three months to one month.

In giving this suggestion, Assistant Minister for Science Research and Biotechnology Dr Annuar Rapaee, said this would reduce the hassle and cost incurred by patients, especially those from rural areas for having to come more frequently to the hospital to obtain their supplies.

In the case of rural areas, perhaps, the supply can go through rural clinics - you don’t have to come to the big hospitals. Dr Annuar Rapaee, Assistant Minister for Science Research and Biotechnology

He was asked to comment on Deputy Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Hilmi Yahaya’s statement in the Dewan Rakyat recently that the Health Ministry was limiting the supply of medicine to patients from three months to one month to combat wastage.

“This, we have to look into carefully if the supply (of medicine) is reduced from three months to one month, where patients (would) have to come more frequently to hospital unless there is a mechanism that is very effective, where the patients do not have to come to the hospital.

“In the case of rural areas, perhaps, the supply can go through rural clinics - you don’t have to come to the big hospitals. You have to look at this thing not as if the government is forcing the people to come (to hospital), but the government when enforcing this, needs to find a mechanism where it does not cost extra for patients to come to the hospital,” Dr Annuar, who is Nangka assemblyman, said.

Dr Hilmi had defended this move as necessary as he claimed that there were patients who did not consume all their medicines and the ministry had spent RM2.2 billion last year and RM1.9 billion this year on buying medicine.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry had recently clarified that the charges for Second Class wards at general hospitals would only increase by 25 per cent, not 50 per cent and the last time the charges were increased was 34 years ago.

Dr Hilmi was also quoted to have said there was no issue at all as it would not have an impact on the lower and middleincome patients as the Third Class charges remained the same, while the Second Class charges would only be up by a few ringgit.

On this, Dr Annuar said: “I have read about this but I think the effect is very minimal but the Third Class wards are not being affected and we are still among (the countries with) lowest medical fees and you can see the cost of medicine is escalating.