Bibile Policy at last: Thank you Mr. President

Millions of people are suffering from the unbearablyhigh cost of healthcare—includinghighlyexpensivedrugs under avarietyof brandnamesandoften non-essential tests and unregulated charges at private hospitals. They will welcome President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s declaration last Friday that brave new steps will be taken soon to implement the long delayed essential medicine concept of the revered Prof. Senaka Bibile.

ThePresidentmadetheannouncementattheopeningof anewmedicalcomplexattheColomboNationalHospitalin Colomboandhisassuranceof abravenewmovewhich hopefully means that the National Medicinal Drugs Policy based on the Bibile Policy will be introduced in Parliament and effectively implemented without being diluted or undermined by vested interests including transnational drugcompanies.

In 2005 the Cabinet approved a comprehensive draft for anNMDPunderwhichqualitydrugscouldbemadeavailable to all people at affordable prices. The draft had been submitted to the then Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva in July 2005 by Professor Krishantha Weerasuriya -- the World Health Organisation’s Drug Policy Advisor for South Asia -- after several rounds of discussions with all stakeholders including patients rights groups. Since then Minister de Silva and the present Health Minister Mithripala Sirisena have repeatedly promised that legislation for the NMDP will be introduced soon but that ‘soon’ hasgoneonformorethaneightyears.

ThePeople’sMovementfortheRightsof Patients(PMRP) in 2009 filed a fundamental rights petition in the Supreme CourtclaimingthatthedelayinimplementingtheNMDP wasdenyingthepeopletheirfundamentalrighttogood healthcare and to obtain quality drugs at affordable prices. But for more than four years the Attorney General representing the government has, like the Health Ministers, promisedtheSupremeCourtthatthelegislationwouldbe introducedsoonbutthatsoonhasnotyetcomethoughthe case has gone on for more than four years.

WehopethatPresidentRajapaksahasnowdecidedthat enoughisenoughandthattheNMDPmustbeintroduced immediately and implemented effectively to restore a health service where the wellbeing of the patients is given top priority.

At present, health experts believe that up to 15,000 medicinaldrugshavebeenregisteredforimportbutnooneknows howmanyarebeingimportedandthereischaosinthe drugmarket.Somedrugsareimportedundertheirgeneric nameswhilethousandsof non-essentialdrugsareimportedunderhighlyexpensivebrandnames.Toaddtothedangerous mess thousands of varieties of counterfeit or substandarddrugsarebroughtinbybaggagecarrierswhoare hired by racketeers to bring in these counterfeit drugs from cottage industries in India or Pakistan. With little or no qualitycontrolandmanypharmaciesknowntobebuying counterfeit drugs from the racketeers, a patient may be paying up to Rs.100 for an anti-biotic which contains wheat flour so the patient takes wheat flour for one or two weeks andwonderswhatthedevilisgoingonbecausehiscondition has got worse in addition to an upset stomach from the wheat flour antibiotics.