Cancer patients got a big shock! Life saving medicines suddenly become expensive by 50 percent

A very disturbing and shocking news is coming out from the health front for lakhs of patients and their families suffering from a serious and deadly disease like cancer across the country. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), the central government’s drug price regulator, has taken a big and unexpected decision to increase the prices of many important and life-saving drugs used in the treatment of cancer by up to 50 percent. After this step of the government, now cancer treatment is going to be much more expensive than before, which is expected to put a huge financial burden on the monthly budget of middle and poor class families.

After all, why did the government have to take this tough decision of increasing the prices of medicines?

After this decision comes to light, it is natural that the question arises in the minds of the general public as to why the government gave approval to increase the prices while giving a shock to the patients. According to information received from pharmaceutical industry experts and government sources, for some time now there has been a record-breaking increase in the cost of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), the raw materials used in making these medicines, in the international market. Along with this, the expenses of packaging, transportation and supply chain have also increased significantly. Drug manufacturing companies said that producing these medicines at the old controlled prices was now proving to be a loss-making deal for them, due to which there was a danger of severe shortage of these important medicines in the market. To prevent this possible shortage and to maintain continuous availability of medicines, the government has been forced to take this drastic step.

Know which cancer medicines will now be heavy on your pocket

According to the government notification, this price increase will have a direct impact on key medicines that are routinely given to patients during chemotherapy and treatment of various types of cancer (such as blood cancer, breast cancer and lung cancer). Many of these medicines come under the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), the prices of which are directly controlled by the government. After the implementation of the new order, the injections and tablets which were earlier available for thousands of rupees, will now have to be paid almost half the price and more. This increase in hospital bills has greatly increased the anxiety of families who were already struggling to meet the expensive expenses of treatment.

Patients and health organizations expressed deep concern, demanded relief

Various health organizations, cancer survivors and social workers of the country have expressed deep concern and displeasure over this government decision of making medicines expensive. Health experts believe that the cost of cancer treatment in India is already very high, and a sudden increase of 50 percent may force many patients to abandon their treatment midway. Various social organizations have appealed to the government to either completely remove GST on these medicines to save cancer patients from this huge financial shock or to widen the scope of schemes like special subsidy and Ayushman Bharat for poor patients, so that no patient loses his life due to lack of money.