MFDA has begun efforts to recompile the essential medicine list to offer more options covered by Aasandha. They are also establishing a co-payment system for excluded medicines and introducing standard treatment procedures for an initial hospital visit.
Efforts to restructure the essential medicine list and the establish a co-payment system for the medicine excluded in this list has begun.
The State’s Insurance Policy presently guarantees a 100 percent coverage of almost all the medicines listed in prescriptions that authorizes Aasandha insurance. However, the "National Medicine Policy" inaugurated last Sunday by the Maldives Food and Drug Authority (MFDA) stated that a separate system for the purchase of medicine excluded in the essential medicine list will be established.
A senior official of MFDA shared with Mihaaru News that the essential medicine list currently consists of 400 medicines. The official assured that with the recompilation of this list, many additional medicines will be incorporated and very few will be omitted.
“Will have to pay own money for medicine excluded in this list. Not the full payment. Aasandha will cover it to some extent,” he said.
The official stated that efforts are being made to establish guidelines under this policy which includes medicine registration guidelines and standard treatment guidelines.
Subsequently, the policy also highlights that the largest medicine distributer in the country, State Trading Organization (STO) will follow this guideline following its introduction. Furthermore, the policy also assures that a mechanism for the procurement of medicine omitted in the list alongside a storage mechanism and a mechanism for distributing these medicines to the patients will also be established within the policy.
The official said that, with these changes, expenses on non-essential medicine will also decline.
"Currently, there are 400 medicines in the essential medicine list and the list will become bigger if standard treatment guidelines are made for every disease. The current practice is that wherever the patient goes, the doctor prescribes the medicines he or she wants," the official said.
“Major antibiotics are given without an initial test. However, the establishment of the standard treatment guideline will include step by step instructions on which medicines to provide in which situations once a sick patient first visits the doctor. Therefore, the prescription will not be medicine that the doctor inclines. The medicine in these guidelines will be included in the list.”
The policy established by the MFDA for the next six years was mainly structured to ensure the timely distribution of quality medicine to the people of the country as they require without any discrimination.
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