Bulletin

Issue: September 2005

News

Desirable drugs in the desert

La Trobe University senior lecturer in Public Health, Dr Ken Harvey, is playing a leading role in fine tuning a national pharmaceutical drugs policy in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Internationally known as a specialist in national pharmaceutical drug policy, Dr Harvey is part of an international team advising the Jordan Government which is currently establishing a system similar to Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

In July he was one of the principal speakers at the National Workshop in Amman entitled Progress in Jordan National Drug Policy: Towards Implementing an Essential Drug List.

He is a member of an expert group from the Australian Health Insurance Commission which has a World Bank contract to help Jordan to modernise the pharmaceutical sector for its 5,300,000 inhabitants.

At the workshop he gave a paper entitled Critical Assessment of Jordan – Reasonable Drug Use and Essential Drug List: Progress within the International Context, as well as chairing a session of the workshop.

Dr Harvey, a specialist in the design of public policy to optimise the use of antibiotics and other medicinal drugs, has helped establish such schemes in a number of countries.

He has worked in 12 Asian countries under the auspices of the World Health Organization, AusAID and other organisations and last year played a major role in introducing a cost efficient pharmaceutical drug scheme for Croatia.

Dr Harvey told the workshop that all countries faced the same difficult problem 'how to provide equitable, evidence-based and cost-effective health care within the capacity of a country?' ability to pay.

'Given finite health care budgets, inappropriate or unnecessarily expensive prescribing for one patient means that others will miss out. In the private sector, it means that patients may not be able to afford the drugs prescribed,' he said.

'Global economic growth will provide greater resources for the purchase of medicinal drugs and other health services. However, uncontrolled market forces do not assure people affordable access to essential drugs of adequate quality nor do they guarantee that drugs are used wisely. As a consequence, there is much interest in national drug policy to make markets more responsive to health needs.'

On recommendation from the workshop a Reasonable Drug Use Advisory Board was set up.