How many rupees worth of medicine does One need? comparison of medicine budgets in PHCs and expenditure on medicines for government employees

Abstract

India has developed a large infrastructure for primary health care (PHC) unfortunately this infrastructure has not delivered results expected out of it. More and more clients are moving away from public to private health care. One of the reasons for this is under funding for medicines in PHC in five states based on available information and compares the per capita medicine allocation to what some of the government and semi-government organizations spend on medicines for their own employees. This comparison is very shocking as it shows that PHC system get 6-9 rupees per capital per year for medicines including expenditures on medicines at CHC, district hospitals and medical college hospitals. While government spends 62-1000 rupees per capital per year on its own employees. Paper also list other problems in management of medicine supplies in the PHC system finally the paper argues for higher level of allocation for medicines in PHCs to make PHC system more effective.