Over one third of Indonesians can't afford prescriptions

Over one third of Indonesians can't afford prescriptions

BANDUNG (JP): Between 30 and 40 percent of Indonesians can no
longer buy prescriptions due to the prolonged economic crisis
that has resulted in the soaring price of drugs, an expert said
on Saturday.

Newly appointed professor at the school of public health of
the Bandung-based Padjajaran University, Uton Muchtar Rafei said
the price of medicines in Indonesia is uncontrollable, and
compared with other countries, much too high.

"Nowadays around 80 million to 90 million Indonesians cannot
afford to buy medicine because the drug prices are too high," he
said.

The estimate was given in his speech during a ceremony to
install him as professor at the state-run university.

Uton is also the regional director of the World Health
Organization-South East Asia Region (WHO-SEARO).

Minister of Health Ahmad Sujudi, who was present at the
installation ceremony, confirmed Uton's remark.

"The price of generic drugs sold in the market was increased
by 24 percent (as of May), so the price of patented drugs will
automatically (be raised)."

Sujudi said the price of generic drugs is around one-third of
the price of patented drugs.

"Due to budgetary limitations, central government has been
unable to counteract rising drug prices with a subsidy," Sujudi
confessed.

He said the government had to spend around Rp 1 billion per
day to supply food for millions of refugees in many shelters
throughout the country due to violence in their areas.

Uton further suggested that the government periodically study
and renew the list of drugs most used by the public in order to
find a basis to subsidize them.

In Indonesia, the health sector has always been regarded as
disadvantageous, not worth investing in, he said, adding the
assumption caused the government to allocate a small amount of
money to it.

Uton said 75 percent of the costs of the health sector were
covered by the private sector and the public, while government
contributed a relatively small subsidy.

"And the regional autonomy policy is expected to worsen this
situation because health issues have yet to become a major
priority for the regional administrations," Uton said.

Therefore, it is also important for the government to raise
funds from the public via insurance schemes, he added.

"At present, only around 20 percent of our population has
health insurance," he said, adding that such schemes could help
reduce the gap between the rich and poor.

Uton stressed that countries like Japan, Germany, South Korea,
Chile and Turkey also needed dozens of years to insure their
citizens.

"It is not easy, but if we don't start now, when will we?"
Uton remarked.(25/emf)