Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sacks Health Minister Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi for proposing price hikes for some medicines. PHOTO: AFP/ FILE
The minister had proposed price hikes for a number of medicines due to the plunge of the Iranian rial against the US dollar and Western sanctions imposed on the country over its disputed nuclear programme.
But Ahmadinejad was opposed to the price rises and dismissed the minister.
Although the sanctions do not directly target medicines, they limit their importation because of restrictions on financial transactions.
Iran produces 97 percent of the drugs on its market, but their ingredients are imported.
In October, an Iranian official acknowledged the price of locally produced medicines had increased by 15-20 percent in the past three months, and 20-80 percent for imported products.
Fatemeh Hashemi, head of the Foundation for Special Diseases, sent a letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon in August asking him to make a case to the West for easing sanctions that are detrimental to patients.
Tehran is under different rounds of sanctions designed by the United States, European Union and the UN Security Council to pressure it to curb its nuclear programme.
Western powers suspect Iran is using the programme to develop atomic weapons capability. The Islamic republic denies that and says its nuclear activities are purely peaceful.
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Economics/business 101. If you don't have money to replenish inventory then your going to eventually run out of inventory - not rocket science. She asked for more money and was turned down leaving her a choice of raising prices or ending up with no medical supplies - tough choice but raising prices beats having no medicine to dispense. Ahmadinejad would prefer "chest thumping" - shame on him.
@Analyzer: This is how a pandering and short-sighted government piles on debt eventually leading to crisis, and then it is forced to raise prices in the end anyway because money doesn't grow on trees and you can't give away stuff for free for very long.
I do not fully understand Iran's problems, but I can guess, and amongst other things Western sanctions should be dropped. However, many countries subsidize medicine for low income people, and it is important for health, particularly the elderly and children, that medicine in Iran remains affordable. One hopes that sanity will eventually take over in the West, so that the problems of affordability in Iran do not arise. Unfortunately, I do not see any signs of it happening. Over the last 20 years or so the US/NATO/Israeli combo seem to have taken the approach that killing, plundering and inflicting brutality upon Islamic countries is the way to go, then they pretend to be puzzled when militancy or lack of cooperation occurs, and it is amazing how many of their people fall for the propaganda.
A person's gender must not be a criterea for selection to, or removal from, a position of responsibility.
Way to go. This is how a democratic government acts to protect the public, unlike ours which just makes excuses to pass on cost of its sheer incompetence on to the general public.