The government of Kerala has launched the scheme envisioned by the prime minister of India that all generic drugs would be made available through government-run hospitals in order to ‘reduce out of pocket expenditure of the poor’ on health related expenses.

The state government has launched the scheme of free supply of all generic medicines, including those in the Essential Drugs List, through government hospitals from November 1, in a phased manner.

In the first phase, the scheme was implemented in five medical college hospitals and three general hospitals. In the second phase, it will be spread to all the hospitals in the state. The second phase will be launched in April 2013, said R Kamalahar, joint managing director, Kerala State Medical Services Corporation.

“Even though major part of the expenditure is funded by the state government, it is partly a program to implement the prime minister’s scheme”, the joint MD who is in charge of the scheme said.

“Government is supplying 952 varieties of generic drugs freely to all the patients coming to the hospital without any APL-BPL divide. All the drugs in the Essential Drugs List are available free of cost. Only a certain number of drugs whose requirement is very low are unavailable in the hospital pharmacies. All the drugs are supplied by Kerala Medical Services Corporation and distributed through government owned hospital pharmacies,” he added.

According to him, government has estimated an expenditure of Rs.320 crore for implementing the scheme.

The free supply of generic medicines has been started in the government medical colleges in Thiruvananthapuram, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Thrissur and Kozhikodu. The three general hospitals are in Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam and Kozhikodu districts.

Through this scheme, government is supplying 106 kinds of anti-cancer drugs free of cost. These medicines are also available in all the general hospitals and medical colleges other than the Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram.

“Previously we were supplying 519 drugs free of cost to all the patients in the government hospitals. Later 327 drugs more were added to the scheme. From this month the total number has increased to 952 with an addition of 106 anti cancer drugs”, Kamalahar told Pharmabiz.

Last week, the union government announced that it would enhance the allocation for the health sector in the 12th Five year plan to implement schemes including free supply of generic medicines.

The proposal of free supply of generic medicines by the government of India is based on the recommendations of a high level expert group on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) constituted by the Planning Commission of India. The report of the Group which was submitted to the Planning Commission in November 2011 proposed that every citizen of India should be entitled to primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare services to be guaranteed by the central government.