How to make medicines affordable for Poor People - Innovative efforts by Dr. Samit Sharma

INTERVIEW ‘Govt Intervention A Must To Cut Prices’ The Chittorgarh district collector knows how the system works OUTLOOK INTERVIEWS SAMIT SHARMA As a medical doctor who practised in different Rajasthan hospitals for nearly five years  before he took the IAS exam, Chittorgarh district collector Dr Samit Sharma, 38, knows  how the system works. Excerpts from an interview: This is a time of letting market forces work. Who will appreciate your idea of  controlling prices? It’s strange. India is the biggest bulk and generics drugs manufacturer, has among the lowest cost of healthcare in the world, but still out-of-pocket expenses on medicines are  the highest in the world here. Without the government intervening, there’s no way to cut prices. How did you bring doctors around? Doctors spend five years in medical school, but are never taught about generics. They  learn about generics from medical representatives, who have an interest in promoting branded drugs. Sometimes doctors will have to compromise on their lifestyle, often funded by benefits from branded drug makers! But all doctors are not bad...many of them are simply ignorant about the efficacy of generic medicines and come around pretty quickly. In your previous posting in Jhalawar, you tried to create access to low-cost  medicines. What happened when you left? It did lose steam once I moved to Chittor, but I also realised that for such a venture to succeed, more than one person is needed. So Chittor’s doctors, patients, medicine suppliers and manufacturers, even the state machinery, are all working together. I learned that you cannot have a stick method alone for such a cause—you need both carrot and stick.