A member of Iranian Parliament’s health commission says that cutting the subsidized foreign currency available for medical drugs is equivalent to “killing patients across the country.”
currency used to import medical drugs, saying: “This would basically mean that we are officially depriving patients from accessing their needed drugs.”
“Under such circumstances, no one will be able to afford these drugs,” Fatahi said; “It would be an unimaginable situation.”
The head of the health commission, Hassan Tamini Lichani, told Khaneh Mellat that such a move by the government would not benefit any party and would only result in “the destruction of the health sector.”
Hassan Tamini Lichani said: “According to the constitution, people are entitled to free health care. Now the government has accepted a 30-percent responsibility for the public’s health care costs, but if drug costs are suddenly tripled, it would become intolerable.”
He stressed that Parliament will use all its tools to prevent such a scenario and to maintain the provision of subsidized dollars for medical drug imports.
With the intensification of U.S. and EU sanctions on Iran’s petroleum and financial sectors, Iran’s national currency has plummeted against foreign currencies in the past year, but the government continues to provide subsidized dollars for the import of necessary goods.
Iranian officials have repeatedly warned against the dwindling medical drug reserves in the country.
