IFP says competition must be introduced to bring down drug prices & the most important right is Non-Discrimination in testing

To reduce medicine prices competition must be encouraged, the IFP said today in Parliament during the Health Budget Vote debate.

IFP Health Spokesperson, Dr Ruth Rabinowitz, said by allowing bulk discounts and establishing a monitoring committee to institute review and audits would ensure that there is transparency and accountability along the entire chain of medicine supplies.

Everyone who buys certain volumes should be entitled to the same discount and anyone who gets a discount must pass it on to the consumer. Privatising medicine distribution along the entire chain would also bring down costs by curbing theft.

Turning to the issue of testing for HIV, Rabinowitz said:

“We constantly talk of openness with regard to HIV but government promotes the politically correct notion that privacy is the most important right. They insist on one on one pre-test counselling and the right NOT to be tested and not to know that results. The shortage of counsellors results in most people not being tested."

“The most important right is that the non discrimination, so that with HIV no one should be denied full chronic benefits and no family should be denied insurance payout if a principle member dies of AIDS, unless specifically stated in the contract.”

Rabinowitz concluded her remarks by call for “honest communication” to restore faith in the Health Ministry:

"The Health Ministry is under siege. It is ailing and inflamed. The infecting agents are hubris and mistrust, but…it can be rejuvenated with open honest communication between private and public sectors and between political parties. Let us work together to change the legacy of the past and narrow the gap between one of the best health systems and one of the worst.”