Islamabad:
On Tuesday a parliamentary organism was reported that the increase in medicine prices has become a serious problem in the country, while the pharmaceutical industry left the country due to corrupt practices.
The Federal Minister of Health told the Senate Permanent Health Committee that the decision to raise the restrictions on medicines would be taken after a survey report.
The committee meeting, chaired by Senator Amir Waleeduddin Chishti, reviewed issues related to the prices of medicines and the pharmaceutical sector.
The president summoned the Federal Minister of Health by saying that while the government was concerned with the increase in drug prices, “they must have heard that pharmaceutical companies have abandoned the country.”
The Minister of Health also informed the committee that previously, in case of legal actions, FIRS presented themselves only against the executive directors of the pharmaceutical companies. “We have changed this procedure,” he said.
Senator Humayun Mohmand observed that the increase in medicine prices had become an important problem in Pakistan.
Senator Dineh Kumar raised concerns about unusual practices in the medical sector, saying that “our women are subject to coercion, with forced operations carried out during childbirth … doctors have become butchers.”
He claimed that commissions were taken both in medicines and in laboratory tests and demanded data on how many pharmaceutical companies foreign trips had sponsored for doctors.
