A survey conducted by the India office of the international non-governmental organisation, Transparency International, reveals that, according to people’s actual experiences, the health service is the most corrupt service sector in India. It ranks India as one of the 30 most corrupt countries in the world. Indifferent treatment of patients, unofficial payments to providers, lack of patient privacy, and inadequate provision of medicines and supplies are some of the most common demerits and malpractices prevailing in the health services in India.

The survey, conducted with private marketing research company ORG-Marg Research, interviewed some 5000 citizens in a household survey to assess the public’s perception of corruption. It covered 10 sectors with a direct bearing on people’s lives, including education, health, the police, the judiciary, and power utilities.

Too high medicinal cost accompanied by doctor’s consultation fees has made the proper medical treatment to become out of the reach of Indian common man, especially in the rural areas where neither licensed medical stores nor qualified doctors are available and malpractices of the Primary Health Centres, available generally in rural towns only, are well known and are practically forfeiting the veritable purpose of PHC’s there. As a result thereof, not only the market of non-qualitative and banned drugs and medicines is flourishing day by day, but the unqualified doctors also are emerging fast and plundering the poor mass. On account of insufficient availability of generic medicines (patent based medicines which are cheaply produced by another process) the patients are compelled to purchase high priced branded medicines.

An analysis of drug market in India by the ‘World Health Organisation’ (WHO) also reveals that Indian pharmaceutical companies are charging very high prices of medicines from patients. In India, the pharmaceutical companies are earning profits even up to ten times or more of the production cost in case of both branded and unbranded medicines. Not only is this, but the companies, by printing high retail price, are letting the sellers too to earn abnormal profits. Like the ratio between production cost and whole sale price, in many cases the retail price also is ten times or more of the whole sale price. The anti-allergic tablet named as ‘Citrazine’ of ‘Cipla Pharmaceuticals’ is an example. High retail prices of patented and generic medicines are making the general mass to resort to unauthentic and duplicate medicines produced by unlicensed pharmaceutical units. That is why the influence of unauthentic, unlicensed and duplicate medicine producing units in Indian drug market is day by day increasing whereby the people are being badly hit on account of low effectiveness and severe side-effects of the medicines produced by these companies. Many times the doctors too, having been affected by the commission based and gift based sale strategies of the companies producing duplicate medicines, prescribe these medicines without paying heed to the compositions and the bad effects on health on account of the use of these medicines. In some cases the sellers (chemists) let aside the prescription of doctor and sell these medicines especially to the illiterate or docile customers. Not only is this, but the manufacturing companies of these medicines also establish their links even to the government medicine purchasing authorities and seek supply orders. Not only the substandard medicines but even those harmful medicines are being produced and sold in bulks in the Indian market which stand banned at international level.  

Medicines are very precious for human life and have become at present a good part of trade. Therefore, the government should take strong and effective steps to make the qualitative and cheap medicines easily available to the people. The government also should take proper measures against malpractices prevailing in the market of medicines and should instil awareness of medicine consumers against these malpractices. Such organisations should be encouraged which manufacture medicines according to the international standards but at low cost so as to make cheap medicines available in the market. The ‘Low Cost Standard Therapeutics (LOCOST)’ trust at Baroda is a good example of such an organisation. This trust is making cheap production in 90 formulations of about 60 necessary medicines to cater the need of poor and needy patients. Moreover, The launching of the ‘public use medicines easy availability programme’ by the Department of Pharmaceuticals of the central government through 100 public stores of generic drugs, planned to be opened up to December 2009, is worth appreciation.

To solve the problems like that of substandard medicines, harmful and banned medicines and unjustified profit margin a central drugs regulatory system has now become acutely and pressingly needed. The issue of permission as regards to the trading of imported medicines also will be settled by such regulatory system.

The government is encouraging and helping the establishment of small pharmaceutical units. Similar cooperation should be extended to the market extension of their products. The condition of minimum turnover should be relaxed in case of small units. In the present period of prevailing depression the small and medium pharmaceutical industries should be helped through stimulus package to protect them in big market. This type of measures will protect the poor and general medical consumers against their being plundered through high prices by providing them cheap medicines. Moreover, it will help making India a medicine hub.

Studies have shown that health care utilisation has been a long standing concern for most of the developing countries and is sensitive to user perceptions of quality. Patient perceptions of health services thence form an important part of health care quality assessment.  Therefore, ways and means should be found out to give potentiality to important elements of making the health system adequately effective to make health services fully responsive to people’s needs and expectations.

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Sigma Health Care a home health and disease management organization, headquartered in Galveston Texas was established in 1997 by Amer Taha. Taha started Sigma with aa mission, vision and a philosophy all focused on the fact that health and medical care can be provided in the patient home in a more efficient and organized fashion if technology is introduced and utilized properly. As a result; in 2002, Taha started and directed a research and development Department within the organization. The …

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Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – A Note on Health Services and Drug Market in India

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) is a corporation of 39 community-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies. They have an enviable track record of having served millions of families with high class and yet affordable health care insurance. BCBS Brands are renowned and one of the leaders in the health insurance industry. They are the pioneers and largest family of health benefits companies with more than 800 employees. Their healthcare coverage is widespread and available in all the 50 states, the District of Columbia and in Puerto Rico. In view of their large-scale operations, almost all hospitals and nearly 80% of the physicians are contracted by BCBS.

BCBS provides a assortment of healthcare insurance to cater a large corporations, medium and small business houses and even individuals. BCBS has grown rapidly and are today registered in about 175 countries. Based in Chicago, Illinois, BCBS was the result of merger between Blue Cross Association and the National Association of Blue Shield in 1982. Prior to the historic merger, the two companies that were created around the same time in two different parts of the U.S were leaders in healthcare insurance. The evolution and growth of the concept of managed healthcare system in the United States is largely, if not solely, due to Blue Cross-Blue Shield plans.

In 1939, the Chicago-based American Hospital Association (AHA) was the first one to use the Blue Cross as a symbol to signify that health plans across the country met certain prescribed norms. The AHA continued to use of this now renowned symbol until the Blue Cross Association was founded in 1960. Meantime, the

first official Blue Shield plan was founded in California in 1939. It was in 1948 the symbol was informally adopted by the Associated Medical Care Plans, which was later renamed the National Association of Blue Shield Plans.

Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance companies offer insurance plans under either or both the brands. Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurers offer some form of health insurance coverage in practically every state in USA. They are providing group coverage to state government employees, as well as the U.S. Federal government employees under a nationwide program of the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP) established by the association on their behalf.

Traditionally the Blue Cross symbol was used for hospital treatment while the Blue Shield for medical coverage. But today the two organizations have become homogeneous and the dichotomy exists in only in eastern Pennsylvania. Otherwise in throughout the country only one insurer operates under both

brands in all places… Both brand names are used by both the associations and its member insurers, though some members prefer one form or the other.

The 14-state WellPoint is the largest Blue Cross-Blue Shield member, and it is a public limited company. Other notable multi-state organizations are CareFirst in the Mid-Atlantic and The Regence Group in the Pacific Northwest.

There is the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation on Health Care which is a non-profit making association. The Foundation is a centralized body that coordinates national multi-site health services research.

The Foundation is rendering affordable service and contributing to the public good by focusing on population-based studies as an effective way to influence health outcomes, health policy and the quality of health services and delivery. Working in tandem with many academic institutions and government agencies, the Foundation facilitates national research that provides solutions to relevant health care issues.

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Medical services in Taiwan have become increasingly internationalized in recent years. A huge market from the combination of tourism and medical services is now emerging in Asia. Research by the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEDP) estimated that by 2012 the total value of the medical services industry in Asia will reach145 Billion NTD. Early developers like Singapore, Thailand and Korea have combined the medical and tourism industries to offer a range of travel products …

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The result:
Centralized government control over the diffusion of new cardiac technology and the number of specialists in the single-payer Canadian system, appears to have more successfully controlled the dissemination of cardiac procedures when compared to market-based approaches employed in the United States.

Translation – the Canadian healthcare system has better survival benefits resulting from cardiac procedures.

http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102194592.html
The study openly admits that the US has more providers or cardiac procedures, yet in spite of this survival benefits are lower in the US.

However you want to spin this, the Canadian system is better in this area.

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