STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: In a significant decision, the State Administrative Council (SAC) which met here on Friday under the chairmanship of Governor N.N Vohra accorded sanction to the adoption of a Free Drugs Policy for Jammu and Kashmir.
The adoption of the Free Drugs Policy shall ensure availability of a number of medicines and drugs free of charge to the patients at different levels Health Centres. The State also itself commits to ensuring the availability of these drugs at the respective health institutions at all times.
This is part of the policy of the Government of India towards achieving the coveted goal of “Health for All”. It aims at reducing high Out of Pocket Expenditure on health care due to high cost of drugs which patients seeking treatment have to bear.
The State Government’s announcement of the Free Drugs Policy shall also enable it to stake claim for funds for provisioning of drugs/medicines under the National Health Mission (NHM).
J&K is one of the states which has already put in place a separate central procurement mechanism in the form of the J&K Medical Supplies Corporation Limited. The Corporation has started functioning fully since 2015 and the drugs/ medicines procured by this agency have already started becoming available. From the next the financial year 2016-17, it shall take over the burden of making all the procurements for Health and Medical Education Department’s procurement needs. In fact, this was one of the pre-requisites for rolling out of the Free Drugs Policy.
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.
