Manipulative hands ensure sky rocketing of Naloxone prices
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: May 27 2011 -

NALOXONE IS a comparatively cheap drug, which is administered to drug addicts suffering from an over dose. Each tablet costs ' 108, and the wholesale rate is ' 88.50 per tablet. The sole authorised stockist in Manipur is the Lamphel Pharmacy.

Naloxone is the only drug available in the state to counter serious complications arising from an opiate overdose. The tragedy is that this tablet is sold at prices ranging from ' 3000 to ' 5000 per tablet.

Parents and near and dear ones of drug addicts are forced to buy the drug at this ridiculous rate in order to save the lives of their sons, wards, brothers, husbands as the case may be.

Without trying to exaggerate, or without being sarcastic we can only term this practice as evil and a crime against humanity. This is manipulation, for the purpose of raking in the greatest possible profits by playing on the tragedies of others.

One needs to know the modus operandi how this ghoulish practice is carried out. Pharmacies which store this drug, or any other drugs for that matter, send out agents to meet patients and their attendants. As soon as doctors or senior nurses prescribe drugs, these agents vie with one another to provide the drugs.

Total accumulated costs are normally settled just before a patient is discharged. Those who run the pharmacies selling the drugs charge the patients' parties any price they choose to. Pharmacies taking full advantage of the desperation of the patients and their attending family members hike the rates abnormally.

It is also learnt that hospital authorities are fully aware of this unethical practice. Where then does the responsibility of this obnoxious drive for ill gotten gains lie?

First and foremost are the owners of the pharmacies indulging in this sordid practice. Second, the hospital authorities, though they might not be directly linked with the sale and marketing, are responsible to the extent that they are mute bystanders knowing fully well what is going on.

It is time the government stepped in. It needs to prepare a list of the drugs, whose prices have been raised incredibly high, as compared to the printed price. Government should insure that these particular drugs be made available to patients at the printed rates.

Raiding the pharmacies will do little good and will perhaps have a negative effect because the drugs might become more scarce.

On the one hand the Government of India is spending millions to check drug abuse and it is subsidising the costs of many drugs, and on the other hand here in Manipur it is blood suckers, adept in emptying other people's pockets, who are dealing with life saving drugs.

Their undeclared motto is make money from the misery of others. It is an unmistakable sign of a sick and morbid society.