High cost of medicine

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32568, 30 March 1971, Page 3

High cost of medicine

(N.Z. Press Association)

ROTORUA, March 29. The continued rise in the cost of pharmaceutical benefits was causing concern, said the Minister of Health (Mr McKay)-

“Last year, it approached $27.5m, and for the year ending on Wednesday, it will be in the region of s3om,” he said, speaking at the opening of the fourth joint national conference held by the Chemists’ Guild and the Pharmaceutical Society. “As Minister of Health, particularly at the present time when Government ex-

penditure is receiving very careful scrutiny, I note with some misgivings the continued rise, year by year, in the cost of pharmaceutical benefits,” he said. Immense value Many factors influenced these costs, said Mr McKay. New and potent drugs became available each year, and they were costly to produce. “Their value to human life, in increasing the life span, and in contributing to the happiness of mankind, cannot be assessed," he said. “It is the Government's intention to see that, as these advances are made, they can be used to our advantage and be made available to all. “But if we are to be able to do this, particularly in the present financial setting, then we must all be prepared to see that drugs are used in such a way as to ensure maximum benefit at minimum cost.”

The responsibility of doctors to keep the drug bill to a minimum, consistent with good medical practice, was emphasised at the conference of the New Zealand Medical Association last month, said Mr McKay. Cut suggested

A suggestion,that the drug bill could be halved without affecting the health of the nation, might be an optimistic estimate, but a few years ago, the Health Department produced evidence to show that careful prescribing could reduce the national expenditure on drugs at least 25 per cent, he said. “The wider aspects of this responsibility to keep down our drug bill extend far beyond the medical profession. In fact, they devolve upon each one of us, and perhaps

more particularly upon yourselves, for nearly all the medicines we use, whether on prescription or not, are obtained from your profession,” Mr McKay told the pharmacists. Vast quantities

“What a wonderfully strategic position you are in, then, to influence the consumer—a consumer who, as in most other developed countries of the world, has a growing tendency to think that all the many ills, stresses and strains of modem living can be alleviated by a tablet or a capsule.” The 97m doses of tranquillisers dispensed in New Zealand in the last financial year indicated that this country was no less susceptible than other countries to the belief in pills as a panacea, said Mr McKay.