News item conveniently forgets to mention that pharmaceutical industry has not been allowed price increase since 2001.
KARACHI: This is with reference to Rauf Klasra’s report of January 22 titled “Drugs price hike: Another bitter pill in the making”. The news item conveniently forgets to mention that the pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan has not been allowed a price increase since 2001. The industry is heavily regulated and medicines, by and large, are quite cheap in Pakistan compared to the rest of the world.
In that context, an increase of seven per cent is not only to be expected, it is unlikely to make a severe dent in the budgets of most Pakistanis. If anything needs to be regulated stringently, it is the consultation fee which a doctor charges that needs to be brought down. This would benefit the average Pakistani considerably, because these charges constitute as much as four-fifths of the total cost of medical treatment.
M Zuhair Abbasi
Published in The Express Tribune, January 24th, 2011.
