Free drug policy is a welcome move in a state where health care system is caught and flourished under corruption and misappropriation of funds. The recent recovery of an expensive CT scan machine from a doctors locked room in Government Medical College in Jammu could be just tip of the proverbial iceberg of misappropriation and mismanagement adopted in government medical institutions. Adding to it is the flourishing private practice by the government doctors despite the official ban and the growing nexus between doctors and testing labs, chemists speaks the unhealthy condition of the health sector in Jammu and Kashmir. Few years back State had adopted the ambitious plan of the Government of India to provide cheaper drugs by promoting generic drugs through Jan Aushadhi retail drug stores. Thanks to callous attitude of State Health Department, the scheme has been abandoned to influential pharma lobby, which allegedly pays handsome enticements to concerned politicians, doctors and administration. The two stores set up, one each at SMGS Hospital and another outside the GMC and Hospital in Jammu under Jan Aushadhi scheme have failed to gain peoples confidence as these stores are kept deliberately short of stock. Most of the doctors prescribe branded drugs instead of generic drugs. The policy initially provides for making available for all ‘In patients’ and ‘Out patients’ 23 medicines at the level of sub-centres, 53 at the level of Primary Health Centres and 68 at the level of Sub-District Hospitals/CHCs/ District Hospitals. This free drug list has been envisaged as an evolving list, which is subject to review by the State Government depending upon the availability of resources and the felt needs of various health institutions. The scheme was aimed at providing affordable medicines to the needy patients which till date has not been able to bring the expected results to the society. The present dispensation of PDP-BJP coalition and the new Health Minister’s intentions may be clear to provide free drugs to the poor and to improve the healthcare system in the State but the deep-rooted corrupt machinery would be the biggest hurdle and there is every possibility that the present scheme too meets its premature death like the Jan Aushadhi scheme.
