Nearly $1.41 billion (48,000 billion rials) was expended by the government to reduce health care costs in the current Iranian year (ends March 20), according to Mohammad Bagher Nobakht, vice-president for strategic planning and supervision.
This year medicine import declined for the first time in the past 15 years to the tune of $300 million. This is while the people were not deprived of their medical needs (compared to the previous years, people’s access to medicines has not changed). Also the prices of some drugs and medical equipment has reduced significantly, says Dr. Rasoul Dinarvand, head of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the health ministry, quoted by IRNA.
In the previous year the price of factor VIII drug (anti-hemophilic) was about $108 which declined to $87 this year. “We are planning to reduce the drug price to $57 in the next year (starts March 21). This means that the cost of the drug has reduced by 50% in 2 years,” he said.
Also multiple sclerosis (MS) patients’ have no difficulty in accessing their medicines. They have great support from the government and domestically produced medicines are almost free for them, Dinarvand asserted.
“From among the 29,000 MS patients in the country, 25,000 were using domestically produced drugs,” he added.
Cooperation
Prior to the health reforms launched last May, people’s share of healthcare costs was more than 60%; it has reduced by 10% and now stands at 50%. “Our goal is to reduce the costs to less than 30%,” Dinarvand said.
Cooperation of insurance organizations is also necessary to achieve the goal, as they are also part of the health reform plan. This will further help reduce health care costs.
At present the general satisfaction with health reforms is high. “The plan made people happy in a short term and very fast.” That’s because people are encouraged by “even small positive changes,” he added.
