Bt30 Programme: Inferior Drugs Used In Scheme

[george]

BT30 PROGRAMME: Inferior drugs used in scheme

Study: Substandard medicines could hamper recovery

BANGKOK: -- Twenty per cent of the drugs used in state hospitals under the Bt30 healthcare scheme have been found to be substandard, the Medical Science Department revealed yesterday.

“The substandard drugs might have affected the quality of treatment, but they shouldn’t have posed any hazards to patients,” said Dr Phaijit Varachit, department director-general.

The department recently began testing drugs listed for use in community hospitals amid rising public speculation over the quality of the pharmaceuticals used to treat patients covered by the Bt30 low-cost healthcare scheme.

The scheme was implemented four years ago, and most patients under it are required to receive medical and healthcare services at community hospitals, where treatment and medications are often regarded as beneath the standard of those at larger hospitals.

The department tested 341 samples of drugs out of 567 usually used in community hospitals under the Bt30 scheme. About 80 per cent met quality standards, said Phaijit.

The major problems found in the ones that failed to meet the standards, he said, included containing insufficient amounts of active ingredients and being poorly digested and absorbed into the body.

Phaijit said his department would circulate a list of the substandard drugs next month to both community hospitals and pharmacies across the country. The list will be updated when new data from further tests is known.

In cooperation with the department, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to retest the drugs found to be substandard. Samples will be taken from the same production lots, which drug manufacturers are obliged to keep by law.

FDA secretary-general Pakdee Pothisiri said if the new tests showed the same results, production of the drugs in question would be temporarily suspended.

Dr Sanguan Nitayarumphong, secretary-general of the National Health Security System (NHSS), which oversees the Bt30 scheme, said that despite its increasing popularity, the programme still suffers people’s lack of trust in the standard of drugs used.

In a bid to boost public confidence in the quality of drugs used in the programme, the NHSS, the FDA, the Department of Medical Science and the committee responsible for regulating the national drug list yesterday signed an agreement to work together on a new drug-quality surveillance and improvement project.

--The Nation 2005-06-16

[stoneman]

Guess I am having a problem understanding why sub standard drugs are in the system to begin with...Do you suppose someone in the drug purchasing dept bought sub standard drugs knowingly...or bought them assuming that they were standard...

Where is the outcry about possible graft and corruption...Remember the school milk program scandal...Why is this different...

[mnoorsapl]

the patients still have to pay for treatment at these hospitals, nothing is for free despite being named community hospital, but they don't know that they are given low quality medicines.