NEW DELHI: Going ahead with its plan to make drugs for life-threatening diseases cheaper, the Ministry of Health has decided to extend the Amrit scheme to all State government-run hospitals in the country.
In a letter sent to all state governments, Union Health Minister J P Nadda has said the Centre was ready to provide training and partly fund to set up Amrit stores in all government hospitals. The scheme will make medication for cancer and cardio-vascular diseases less expensive.
The letter also asked State governments to ensure that there was at least one Amrit store in each State. “The Centre will provide training to pharmacists as well as share the cost of setting up the stores,” the letter said. The first among such outlets, which are called Amrit (Affordable Medicines and Reliable Implants for Treatment) outlets, was set up at AIIMS in Delhi. The MoH had proposed to set up 13 such Amrit stores across the country, out of which four were supposed to be in Delhi.
The Health Minister recently inaugurated three more stores at JIPMER Puducherry and AIIMS Rishikesh and Raipur coinciding with the completion of two years of the Modi Government.
The outlets are set up by M/s HLL Lifecare Ltd which is a 100 per cent government of India owned Public Sector Unit. The AIIMS store has 202 drugs of cancer and cardiovascular diseases where the price is reduced on an average by 60 to 90 per cent.
Pay less for cancer drugs
The scheme will make medication for cancer and cardio-vascular diseases less expensive
The Centre will provide training to pharmacists as well as share the cost of setting up the stores
Centre asked States to ensure that there was at least one Amrit store in each State
70,000 people are diagnosed with cancer every year in India
2.8 million people have cancer at any point of time and half a million die of the disease each year in India