- The government needs to go beyond just word
The promise by Health Services SAPM Dr Zafar Mirza, that certain medicines which could be used in the treatment of covid-19, is bad enough, but when patients’ families have to pay vast sums to get those medicines, a dilemma was created which could have been avoided had the government paid more attention to the problem. In the case of lifesaving drugs, there is a tendency on the part of medicine traders to create a shortage which they will then exploit. To that extent, they may be called a mafia. However, it is the job of the government to ensure that there is no price-gouging or hoarding, and that these medicines are available in the market at a fixed price.
The pity of the situation is that the medicines are not always available even for those willing to pay the sort of exorbitant rates being charged by price-gougers and black-marketers. These medicines are already very expensive, and are also experimental to boot, none being a definite cure for covid-19. However, until a cure is identified, and a vaccine developed, these medicines are the best that are available for people who are fighting for their lives. It is therefore the government’s responsibility to ensure their availability. It cannot hide behind the excuse that the pandemic was unforeseen, and that the demand for these drugs was equally unforeseen. That excuse might wash in the early days of the pandemic, or at the time when these medicines were not identified as potential cures, but at this stage, the government should be clear about what it has to do.
It is not as if this is an area in which the government is a new entrant. There is an elaborate mechanism involving a Drug Price Regulatory Authority, and the provincial governments are the biggest customers for medicines in the country. The shortage in itself is a sign that the government has not been to do its job, and has not understood the nature of its task in the current pandemic.
