State Minister for Health MA Muhit has warned pharmaceutical companies against arbitrarily increasing medicine prices, saying that while protecting the industry’s interests is important, putting the public and the government in danger will not be tolerated.
Speaking as the chief guest at a stakeholder consultation meeting at Hotel Sonargaon in Dhaka on Monday, the state minister said the government wants to ensure a balance where neither citizens nor the state faces hardship due to medicine costs.
“Pharmaceutical companies are certainly business entities; they need profits. Just as it is not right to keep medicine prices frozen for years while everything else’s price increases, in the same vein we do not want any policy that allows arbitrary price hikes,” he said.
“Our main goal is to maintain a balance so that neither the public nor the government is endangered in any way,” he added.
“This government was formed just two months ago. We assumed responsibility after a long wait and a mass uprising. Public expectations are sky-high,” he said. “But after taking charge, we have seen a state of disarray prevailing everywhere in the health sector.”
He described the dismal condition of hospitals across the country. “For the past 5-7 years, barely any maintenance was carried out on many hospitals. Some places have buildings but no equipment, elsewhere there is a shortage of medicines.”
“We have to work amid this enormous challenge. Added to this is the adverse global situation, which has become a ‘final blow’ for us,” he added.
Muhit stressed the government’s accountability to the people. “We want to ensure at least a minimum standard of healthcare and life-saving medicines for the people. We understand your problems and want to resolve them quickly.”
“If we do not find solutions collectively, both the industry and the country will suffer,” he said.
The meeting was jointly organised by the Health Services Division of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the World Bank.
Among those present were Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services Dr Prabhat Chandra Biswas, Additional Secretary of the Ministry Saiful ATM Islam, representatives from the private health sector, pharmaceutical industry owners, and senior ministry officials.
