Lok Sabha Question No. 3169 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-08-06
Subject: Free Medicines to Poor
Ministry: HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE
Asked by: Sanjay Haribhau Jadhav, Supriya Sadanand Sule, Anurag Sharma

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 3169

## TO BE ANSWERED ON THE 06 th  AUGUST, 2021

## FREE MEDICINES TO POOR

## 3169.   SHRI SANJAY JADHAV: SHRIMATI SUPRIYA SULE: SHRI ANURAG SHARMA:

Will the Minister of HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE be pleased to state:

- a) whether the Government has rolled out any scheme to provide free medicines to poor and economically weaker sections of the society viz. SC, ST and such others;
- b) if so, the details of the medicines procured for this purpose during the last three years and the current year;
- c) whether  the  Government  has  entered  into  any  arrangement  in  this  regard  with  the States/UTs, if so, the details thereof;
- d) the targeted number of medicines including lifesaving drugs made available free of cost to  the  poor  patients, the  funds  utilized  for  the  purpose as  on  date  and  the  extent  to which the quality of such drugs procured is ensured; and
- e) the other  steps taken  by  the  Government  to  distribute  lifesaving  drugs  and  generic medicines free of cost to poor patients to enhance healthcare services?

## THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH & FAMILY

## ANSWER WELFARE

(DR. BHARATI PRAVIN PAWAR)

(a)  to  (e):    'Public  Health  and  Hospitals'  being  a  State  subject,  the  primary  responsibility  of strengthening public healthcare system including provision of free essential drugs that includes lifesaving  drugs  in  public  healthcare  facilities,  lies  with  the  respective  State  Governments. However, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare provides technical and financial support to the  States/UTs  to  strengthen  the  public  healthcare  system  including  support  for  ensuring sufficient  supply  of  free  essential  drugs  to  be  made  available free  of cost  at  public  healthcare facilities towards the objective of providing accessible, affordable and quality healthcare to all those who access public health facilities including poor and economically weaker sections of the society viz. SC, ST and such others.

To ensure availability of essential drugs and reduce the Out of Pocket Expenditure (OOPE) of the  patients  visiting  the  public  health  facilities,  Government  has  rolled  out  the  Free  Drugs Service Initiative (FDSI) under National Health Mission (NHM).

Under this, financial support is provided to States / UTs for provision of free essential medicines in  public  health  facilities  based  on  the  requirements  posted  by  them  in  their  Programme Implementation Plans (PIPs) and within their overall resource envelope.

Support under the scheme is available for Procurement of drugs and strengthening  /setting up robust systems of procurement, Quality Assurance, Supply chain management and warehousing,  Prescription  audit,  grievance  redressal,  dissemination  of  Standard  Treatment Guidelines and Establishment of IT enabled platform DVDMS (Drugs & Vaccine Distribution Management System) for monitoring the real time status of procurement and availability of essential medicines.

DVDMS is  a  web-based  Supply  Chain  Management  System  that  deals  in  purchase,  supply, distribution  and  inventory  management  of  various  drugs  and  has  an  in-built  provision  of monitoring and checking the availability of medicine at all facilities at district and state level.

Further,  Ministry  has  recommended facility  wise Essential  Medicines  List (EML) to be made available at the public healthcare facilities. The number of drugs under EML at various levels of Public Healthcare facilities is as below:-

- i. Sub Health Centre Health & wellness centre (SHC-HWCs)- 105
- ii. Primary Health Centre Health & wellness centre (PHC-HWCs)- 172
- iii. Community Health Centres (CHCs)- 455
- iv. District Hospital (DHs)- 544

However, States have the flexibility to add more medicines and Essential Drugs List (EDL) of States vary from State to State stipulate that :-

Quality  of  drugs  procured,  under  Free  Drugs  Service  Initiative,  is  ensured  through  the operational guidelines of the initiative that

- i. All  drugs  must  be  sourced  from  Good  Manufacturing  Practices  (GMP)  compliant manufacturers through robust procurement mechanism.
- ii. Post supply testing of every batch before distributing to the health facilities.

In addition to this, the States are encouraged to do prescription audit to improve the quality of care provided by the health facilities and also to ensure prescription of generic and rational use of drugs. Standard Treatment Guidelines (STGs) have been developed for ensuring rational use of drugs and preventing all forms of wastages.