Health Minister Nila Djuwita F. Moeloek said
that she had not received official reports about fund flows from pharmaceutical
companies to doctors.
“I just found out about it from a running
text,” Nila said at the Research and Technology and Higher Education Ministry’s
office in Jakarta on Friday, September 16, 2016.
Nila explained that it would be irregular for
doctors to receive money from pharmaceutical companies.
Earlier, Corruption Eradication Commission
(KPK) chairman Agus Rahardjo revealed an indication that a pharmaceutical
company had sent money amounting up to Rp800 billion (US$61.5 million) to
doctors over the last three years. The KPK received the report from the
Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK).
According to Agus, the money was channeled by
a pharmaceutical company. In addition, he said that the company was not a major
one. He viewed that the report could not be used to describe the actual
condition of the pharmaceutical industry.
Agus revealed that the company’s expense
reflected the huge amount of money spent for health care services. Based on a
research conducted by the KPK, Indonesia’s expenses for health care services
accounted for 40 percent of the country’s total expenses, which were higher
than those in other countries, such as Japan and Germany.The PPATK’s report was
in line with Tempo magazine’s investigation into a graft allegation involving
doctors and pharmaceutical companies. The investigation, conducted in 2015,
revealed that about 2,000 doctors were involved in the practice.
The article also mentioned that the
transaction value for medicines reached Rp69 trillion (US$5.3 billion) as
pharmaceutical companies allegedly bribed doctors to put their products in
prescriptions for patients.
The KPK and the Health Ministry worked
together to make an agreement that strictly governed the practice of providing
funds from pharmaceutical companies to doctors. Despite the regulation, Nila
said that a doctor would be allowed to receive a gift from a pharmaceutical
company if the aim was to improve the doctor’s competency or to conduct a
research.
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