New committee set up to take over buying of special medicines

A new committee is being set up to assume responsibility for purchasing special medicines for medical facilities across Thailand after it was ruled that the National Health Security Office (NHSO) was not legally authorised to make procurements.
Public Health Minister Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn said recently that a five-partite committee would be established this year to oversee procurements for the 2018 fiscal year which would start on October 1. 
“The five-partite committee will comprise representatives from the Public Health Ministry, the NHSO, the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO), medical school hospitals, and the Defence Ministry (which has run some medical facilities),” the minister said. 
The NHSO has been responsible for procuring necessary or expensive medicines such as antivenoms and cancer drugs for the past nine years. Such procurement accounts for about 4.9 per cent of the country’s Bt140billion drug market. 
However, the government-spending scrutiny committee established by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) has said that the NHSO is not legally authorised to make the procurements. 
“We have decided to set up a committee to handle the procurement instead to ensure compliance with laws,” Piyasakol said. 
NHSO secretary-general Dr Sakchai Kanjanawattana said his agency was willing to cooperate with Piyasakol’s initiative to introduce the five-partite committee to ensure that the procurement process will continue in the best interests of the people. 
“It should be noted that many medical service providers are not able to procure some types of medicines themselves, including vaccines, because there are special requirements about storage and quality control. That’s why it is necessary that we develop a central procurement system and assign big hospitals to help with distribution,” Sakchai explained. 
Kannikar Kijtiwatchakul, a NHSO board member, said that the current procurement process was so efficient that it saved the budget about Bt7 billion a year.
“We have efficiently negotiated for the best price, thus boosting people’s access to necessary medicines,” she said. 
A member of a network that monitors the drug situation in Thailand, Kannikar said she could not agree with any plan to have the Public Health Ministry centralise drug procurement power. 
“In fact, if the law does not allow the NHSO to buy these medicines, legal amendments should be made,” Kannikar said. 
The NHSO has assigned the GPO to negotiate with drug manufacturers to get the best prices based on recommendations of the Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Programme.