SHILLONG: The A’chik Youth Council (AYC) has submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Conrad Sangma urging him to set up generic medicine stores in all civil hospitals, CHCs and PHCs within the state.
As you are aware, affordable healthcare is still a distant reality for thousands of people in the region. The branded allopathy medicines available in local medical stores are significantly beyond the capacity of poor people, the memorandum stated.
The AYC also stated that the poor are unable to afford expensive medicine and “die without proper medication”.
“However, the government can remedy the situation to some extent by introducing generic medicines in our state. Generic medicine was already introduced in the state of Rajasthan by Samit Sharma,” the AYC said.
“For instance, the patients have to buy the Glimepiride 2 mg tablets of diabetes drugs for Rs 50 in the form of allopathic branded version while in generic drugs it is available at Rs. 5.05 which is cheap and affordable. Blood cancer meds are priced at Rs 1.2 lakh while generic medicine costs Rs 10,000,” the AYC said.
“The price comparison between branded medicine and generic drugs clearly show that allopathy branded medicine is much costlier than the generic ones. As per the expert; the qualities of generic medicine are same and safe as that of branded version,” it added.
The AYC, while urging the CM to look into the matter at the earliest, said that it is the duty of the government to protect the lives of the people by finding a solution to their problems.
“We also like to entreat your government to encourage private medicine stores to stock the generic medicine and doctors to prescribe the same. We believe that government is for the people and the lawmakers are the beacon of changes,” the AYC said.
