Cost of drugs crippling coronavirus patients - Health management expert

CEO of Royal Crown Consult, George Kesse, has raised concerns about the cost of drugs in Ghana.

According to him, Ghanaians pay three times the manufacturing price of drugs imported into the country, something he posited has pushed a lot more people away from accessing quality healthcare.

The Health management consultant disclosed that with the advent of COVID-19, many patients are struggling to put up with the amount of money to spend on drugs to treat their condition.

“There are lot of people who are just prescription away from getting well, but during this covid-19 period they are actually going round looking for money just to buy medications to survive,” he said.

He believes proper regulatory measures need to be put in place to deal with the cost regime of drugs in the country.

Speaking to Lantam Papanko on Morning Starr, he said, one critical step to be looked at in the interim, is for the government to partner with the private sector to deploy the needed technology and systems to cut down waste in the supply and distribution chain of drugs in Ghana.

“In Ghana, once the drugs leave the warehouse of the importer, there is no measures to track where these drugs go and that opaqueness contributes to the cost we pay, so there is the need to deal with the supply and distribution lapses.”

Mr. Kesse, also indicated, there is the need to have proper and accurate data to check the level of drugs that expire at the country’s various hospitals and pharmacies annually which he believes contributes to the high cost of medications to patients.

A recent news report suggests that about 70% of Ghanaians depend on herbal drugs partly due to the high cost of accessing quality orthodox medicines.