MP SPEAKS One of the biggest challenges facing Malaysians is access to affordable health care.
The price of medicine and other medical services, including hospitalisation, are increasingly beyond the reach of middle class and poor Malaysians.
The introduction of the goods and services tax (GST) has further escalated the cost of health care.
For example, a person with HIV who is paying RM2,190 for life-saving medicine will incur a further RM130 expenditure in GST payment on a monthly basis.
And we have not considered the cost of medical care and life saving medicine for people with cancer and other medical conditions such as diabetes, mental health and hypertension, which are high in the country.
At a recent talk on the 11th Malaysia Plan (11MP), Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Wahid Omar ( right ) indicated that the government, in drafting the 11th MP, would address poverty from a multi-dimensional perspective. They include income, access to education, healthcare and living conditions.
The government’s effort has to be welcomed since this would constitute a departure from the present approach using Gini coefficient and other questionable measurements in addressing poverty.
But does the government have the political will to undertake structural changes to ensure affordable health care for its people?
A 2012 article in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Services entitled ‘A Study Comparing Retail Drug Prices Between Northern Malaysia and Australia’ revealed issues that Wahid has to consider as the Economic Planning Unit addresses the nexus between access to health care and poverty.
The study compared retail prices of the 10 most-used prescription drugs in Northern Malaysia and Australia.
And the findings showed that the retail drug prices in Penang, Northern Malaysia, were 148.28 percent higher than the retail prices in Australia.
The comparative study showed that Malaysians are paying way above their counterparts in the developed world.
Lack of drug-pricing regulations
This is because Malaysia lacks drug-pricing regulations, which could place limits on prices and profits of pharmaceutical firms, such as in Australia.
In addition, the research reveals Malaysian retail pharmacies mark-up about 25-38 percent on innovator brands and 100-140 percent on generic medicine.
As such access to medicine in Malaysia is more expensive than in other developing countries, such as India and Sri Lanka.
The prices of essential drugs also vary across the country as a result of a lack of a national drug pricing policy.
In direct contrast, countries such as France and Italy regulate their prices of medicine. Similarly in Britain, the National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Authority monitors prices through the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation, which controls prices of medicines by regulating profits from sales.
The study also notes that government’s effort to privatise drug distribution system for public hospitals led to a 30 percent increase in medicine costs.
In fact the article notes that ‘free market economy’ in the management of medicine in Malaysia had placed the monopoly of medicine sales in the hands of manufacturers, distributors, doctors and pharmacists.
And it appears that business interests and profits dominate the different stages of the production and distribution chain resulting in high medicine prices.
As such, two challenges confront Wahid as he plans to address access to health care and poverty.
First, the introduction of a medicine pricing policy and price monitoring system that will make affordable and lower priced medicine possible, consistent with the government’s 2009 National Medicines Policy.
Second, efforts must be made to remove all forms of state capture of government procurement of medicine by cronies. Eliminating cronies from using their political influence to secure privatized projects could lead to lowering of drug prices.
Providing affordable medicine to its population is a fundamental obligation of any government. This means that the government has to start regulating the prices of medicines immediately.
CHARLES SANTIAGO is DAP Member of Parliament for Klang.
