NGOs working in health sector soon to meet in Delhi to urge Union govt to add more drugs under NLEM

Chennai, November 1, 2022:

About 20 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), working in the health sector in the country, are likely to meet in New Delhi soon to make a demand to the Union government to bring more number of costly medicines widely used in India under the ambit of the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) 2022.
 
In the first week of September this year, the union health ministry had released NLEM 2022 which comprised 384 items with an addition of 34 new drugs after dropping 26 drugs from the list of 2015. The healthcare activists working under various organizations argue that if the primary purpose of the NLEM is to be realized the government should add all the costly drugs in the list to control their prices. According to them, it is the moral responsibility of the government to promote rational use of medicines which should be based on the primary goals such as cost, safety and efficacy.
 
Talking to Pharmabiz about the intention of the health NGOs, Dr.SubhashMondal, leader of an NGO in Kolkata, said several demands have already been made to the governments ever since 1996 when the first list was prepared by the Indian health ministry. Although the government is in favour of adding more costly medicines to the list, the manufacturing companies are coming in the way by raising myriad claims. In addition to this there are the patent rights which also become a hindrance to the government to add new drugs into the list.
 
He said, as a responsible health activist he cannot backtrack from his primary objective, but will move forward with a new spirit till the goal is reached. As the chairman of the Regulatory Affairs Division of the Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA) he has written several letters to the union government and to the CDSCO highlighting this issue. Finally, the demand will be highlighted at the national level in the form of an agitation with the involvement of all the health activists and NGOs working in the field. Before it, letters will be sent to the government and to the concerned regulatory agencies to contemplate on the issue once again and take a decision for the benefit of the poor people in the country.
 
“Further to this, we demand that the government should come up with more supportive projects such as drug procurement policies, health insurance, improving prescribing habits, continuing medical education to all doctors, training healthcare professionals and drafting a new pharmaceutical policy. This will help for the optimum utilization of healthcare resources and budget. We are about 20 organizations raising these demands and hope that the government will surely pay heed to our demands which are focusing on the health of the people of the country. The major hurdles are the medicine manufacturing companies who will try to block all our programmes, but we will move on,” Dr Mondal told Pharmabiz.

He said the national list of essential medicines was first formulated in 1996 and it was revised three times later, ie, in 2003, 2011 and 2015. He said the WHO’s Model List of Essential Medicines, which was first published in 1977, is being updated every two years by an expert committee. But in India, the NLEM is not updated on a regular basis. Dr Mondal, who was previously the deputy drugs controller in West Bengal, said a section of healthcare professionals across India wants to approach the Union health minister to make the demand for adding more drugs into the list NLEM 2022.Pharmabiz