{"id":265039,"date":"2023-10-18T20:17:49","date_gmt":"2023-10-18T14:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/?p=265039"},"modified":"2023-10-18T20:21:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T14:51:06","slug":"centralised-procurement-as-a-powerful-health-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/centralised-procurement-as-a-powerful-health-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Centralised procurement as a powerful health idea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: <\/strong>This post has been created based on the article \u201cCentralised procurement as a powerful health idea\u201d<\/strong> published in The Hindu<\/strong> on 18th<\/sup> October 2023.<\/strong><\/p>\n

UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 2 Social Justice \u2014 Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector\/Services relating to\u00a0Health.<\/strong><\/p>\n

News<\/strong>:\u00a0This article discusses the advantages of centralized or pooled procurement of drugs by the central government and how it can revolutionize healthcare in India.<\/p>\n

What are the advantages of centralized procurement?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

1) Price efficiency:<\/strong> Corporate hospital chains, for years, have conducted direct negotiations with pharmaceutical companies, and availed significant discounts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

2) Quality concerns: <\/strong>In addition to cost savings, buyers can ensure better quality by having the supplies tested independently rather than having to rely on the drug regulator to ensure quality.<\/p>\n

3) Prevent stockouts (medicines \u2018out-of-stock\u2019).<\/strong><\/p>\n

4) Cost-savings for patients:<\/strong> Hospitals can benefit from better bargaining power<\/strong> if they buy in bulk and can then pass on these cost savings to patients<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

However, the central government chooses to ignore these merits of pooled procurement despite being aware of them.<\/p>\n

Centralized procurement for beneficiaries under the CGHS (Central Government Health Scheme), ESI (Employees\u2019 State Insurance Scheme) and PMJAY is not yet a reality.<\/p>\n

What should the government do in this regard?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The government can follow the centralized procurement model for most of the drugs, like it follows for procuring male contraceptives<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Pharma PSUs can provide benchmark prices<\/strong> and also ensure that the government is not forced to buy from private manufacturers, given that there is competition from PSUs which can supply at a competitive price.<\/p>\n

What should be the way forward?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Centralized procurement has the power and the potential to reduce costs<\/strong>, ensure better deployment of funds<\/strong> in other areas related to health care, and ensure availability of life-saving drugs<\/strong> in this country.<\/p>\n

It is an idea that India should implement at scale, and as soon as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: This post has been created based on the article \u201cCentralised procurement as a powerful health idea\u201d published in The Hindu on 18th October 2023. UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 2 Social Justice \u2014 Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector\/Services relating to\u00a0Health. News:\u00a0This article discusses the advantages of centralized or pooled procurement… Continue reading Centralised procurement as a powerful health idea<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,8131,10498],"class_list":["post-265039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-social-issues","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":166,"cached_at":1698384021,"cached_date":1698478632},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}