RISE FOR EQUALITY
Civil Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan PHOTO/Medical News
Cure is prohibited
A short film produced by International Youth and Workers Movement on healthcare problem – watch here
In February 6 major drug companies increased the price of their medicines from 20 to 70 per cent in Pakistan, including some medicines for chronic diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes which have to be taken on a regular basis and without which health and life cannot be sustained. In a country where minimum wage is about Rs. 13,000 or $130 per month, an increment of this magnitude has made these drugs inaccessible or further compromised the ability to afford other items of daily use.
On the other hand the pharmaceutical industry argued that this increase in price was necessary for the survival of the industry itself due to increasing costs of raw material as well as cost of production and devaluation of Pakistani currency. Under the capitalist system profit is the life blood of businesses and thus they try to maximize it even at the cost of human misery.
This creates a tension in the society where well being of people is in direct conflict with the well being of pharmaceutical industry. And thus raises the questions: Can human lives be jeopardized for the sake of profit? Or should the industry be sacrificed for the sake of human lives? What is the solution to this problem of people vs profit?
Philosophers and thinkers throughout history have dreamed of a world free of want. Currently, majority of social scientists and thinkers believe that healthcare is human right and so no one should be deprived of it. There was a time before the age of industrialization when it was, perhaps, not possible to implement this concept into practice due to primitive means of production and limited production capacity. However now this dream can be changed into reality.
Machination and improved technology increased the production capacity where needs of all people can be easily fulfilled if the profit motive is removed from the process. This is true not only for medicines and healthcare but almost all basic human needs like food, shelter, clothes. Also the advent of internet and distant learning can be used to provide education and access to knowledge to people even in the far off corners of the world.
The only thing standing in the way is the capitalist system where things are produced and created for profit rather than to satisfy human needs. There is no justification for people to stay hungry, poor, sick, or without shelter, education and skills or to be deprived of achieving their true potential. But for that to happen we have to implement a system which is based on equality of access to opportunities and right over all the resources available.
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