World Health Organization Country Office for India in collaboration with the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MOHFW), Government of India, organized a high-level National Conference on Free Medicines’ Schemes in the States of India from 18-20 November 2014 at Chennai.
The conference was held to discuss and exchange best practices, experiences and case studies, both at national and international levels. It was aimed at building capacity of state officials in-charge of drug supply on several key themes and technical topics of procurement and supply chain management.
Access to essential medicines is crucial to achieving the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) objective and to make public health care accessible, effective, and comparatively attractive in India. The implementation of a free medicines programme requires serious investments at state level for strengthening the existing health system infrastructure, financing mechanisms, human resources, and control and monitoring tools.
While formulating the 12th Five Year Plan for the Health Sector, a Working Group on Drugs and Food Regulation recommended making a provision for free medicines for all in public health facilities under the National Health Mission (NHM) where state governments are encouraged to set up medical supplies corporations to supply free, quality generic medicines.
The WHO India Report on ‘Universal Access to Medicines in India: A Baseline Evaluation of the Rajasthan Free Medicines’ Scheme’ was released during the conference. This evaluation was undertaken in 150 facilities in the state of Rajasthan to study the access and availability of medicines and the out of pocket expenses on medicines, in collaboration with the Government of Rajasthan.
Several important topics including UHC, access to medicines in the context of UHC, state medicines supply programs, supply chain management of medicines, quality assurance and control, good distribution practices, human resources management, monitoring and evaluation framework, laboratory functions etc. were discussed during the conference.
Several national and international experts of repute shared their best practices and experiences during the conference.