Asha Jyothi dying a premature death

VISAKHAPATNAM: The Asha Jyothi pilot project launched amid much fanfare in Vizag a couple of years ago to provide expensive branded anti-cancer drugs to poor patients at highly discounted prices (20-85%) is dying a premature death.
All thanks to the officials being transferred as well as the ongoing tussle between oncologists and the Jeevandhara officials over the availability of medicines.And in the bargain it is the poor patients who are suffering the most.
As part of this ambitious programme, which was launched by Drugs Control Administration (DCA) officer Uday Bhaskar and former district collector J Syamala Rao, 24 most commonly used branded cytotoxic (anti-cancer) drugs from 10 reputed companies were distributed to needy patients from the Jeevandhara generic medicine pharmacies at King George Hospital (KGH).
"The Asha Jyothi project is dying because of lack of support from oncologists. Though the KGH Jeevandhara outlet has in stock almost all the frequently-used cancer drugs, oncologists don't send patients to the Jeevandhara outlet to buy drugs, forcing them to buy the same branded drugs from retail outlets at a much higher price," said M Gurunath, coordinator for Jeevandhara outlets in the city.
He pointed out that Jeevandhara outlets procure the branded medicines from local suppliers. "We have our own authorised distributer who gets the drugs from the pharma manufacturers," he explained.
However, oncologists blamed the Jeevandhara outlet for not maintaining adequate stock of the oncology drugs. "Asha Jyothi has become an orphan project. I have personally sent patients with prescriptions and so have other doctors from our department but each time patients come back saying that the stock is not available, which is why we have stopped sending them there," said Dr N Sujatha, head of the department of oncology at KGH and one of the doctors associated with the development of the concept.
The pharmacist at KGH Jeevandhara, S Padmini, said that for the last six to seven months, oncology patients haven't been seen coming to the store with prescriptions though patients from other departments frequent the store. "A few patients who came asked only for tamoxifen citrate (breast cancer drug) or cycloxan, which were out of supply for some time," she said.
When queried about the lack of availability of drugs, Gurunath of Jeevandhara said, "It might be that the stock was not available for one or two days. It is true that there was no supply of tamoxifen citrate for some time but the other drugs were available. We can get the drugs from our distributer in a few minutes if we get the prescription, but patients aren't being sent to us. We are now planning to send the drugs back to our distributer as these are just sitting on the shelves and will expire in a year or two, causing losses to us."
The pharmacist at KGH Jeevandhara, S Padmini, said that for the last six to seven months, oncology patients haven't been seen coming to the store with prescriptions though patients from other departments frequent the store. "A few patients who came asked only for tamoxifen citrate (breast cancer drug) or cycloxan, which were out of supply for some time," she said.
The latest tussle between the Jeevandhara officials and oncologists, comes even as some malpractices earlier by some vested interests in connivance with certain pharma companies had conspired to give the project a bad name. This was just after the transfer of the two key officials to Hyderabad.
"Just prior to our transfer, we had investigated complaints of drugs from companies not listed under the project being illegally sold to patients at high prices. Certain private doctors and chemists attached to the pharmacies of corporate hospitals also carried out false propaganda against the quality of these subsidised branded medicines. We also got complaints that doctors were not interested in sending patients to Jeevandhara outlets as they were getting incentives from pharma companies to procure drugs at 30-40% less price," said R Uday Bhaskar, secretary general, All India drugs officers' confederation and assistant director, DCA.
Asha Jyothi was designed to exclude middlemen so as to minimise the huge difference between the dealer's and manufacturer's price or MRP and hence reduce the prices for the patients. The manufacturing companies give the medicines to the dealers and Jeevandhara agents procure them from the dealers and play the role of retailers. But unlike retailers, who have a huge profit margin, the margins of the Jeevandhara outlet is negligible, explained Uday Bhaskar.