Serious ailments to get govt cover

NEW DELHI: The government is planning to foot a part of medicine bills for patients suffering from heart, kidney ailments and cancer irrespective of their economic background. It is planning to expand the scope of the two proposed schemes originally intended for providing free medicines to the poor to the wealthier lot as well.

While the government aid for these patients will meet half of the medicine bills for the rich, it will foot the entire bill for the poor. The chemicals and fertilisers ministry is modifying its proposed cancer drug assistance fund to reimburse half of the treatment cost to the financially well-off.

“The plan is to give the amount directly to the hospital after the treatment. We will examine if we can implement the programme ourselves or we need to have a separate agency,” said a senior government official. While an estimated 26 lakh people suffer from various forms of cancer in India, the number of heart patients is more alarming.

According to the World Health Organisation, 60% of the world’s cardiac patients will be Indian by 2010. This may make a heavy dent in the country’s productive work force as increasingly younger people are succumbing to cardiovascular diseases here.

The fund is also being expanded to cover heart ailments and kidney problems, which also often require costly medicines. Cancer drugs and medicines that discourage the body from rejecting a transplanted kidney are among the costliest medicines. For example, a monoclonal antibody for non-Hodgekin’s lymphoma will cost a patient Rs 90,000 to Rs 1,20,000 (depending on state levies) per treatment cycle, while some breast cancer drugs are priced at Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh for a dose.

The scheme would be kickstarted with a Rs 100 crore allocation from the government. Another scheme the government intends to expand now is the proposed 600 odd district drug banks. These would provide medicines at half the price for the economically well-off, and totally free for the poor.

“Our estimate is that every drug bank would need a fund of Rs 20 lakh to begin with. We intend to mobilise Rs 120 crore from central and state governments and the industry for this,” said the official.

Once the project takes off, the hospitals that house these drug banks could generate funds to make them self sustaining. Rajasthan’s largest public hospital SMS Medical College and Hospital has done this by introducing a user charge for all diagnostic tests done there. The drug bank raises Rs 12 crore a year to dispense medicines at a high discount, he said.