Clarifying CDAP issue

WHEN the Chronic Disease Assistance Plan (CDAP) was introduced by former Health Minister Colm Imbert in February 2003, it was welcomed by this newspaper. We accepted it as an innovative measure designed to relieve the agony of poor and elderly patients who were routinely made to wait for long hours, sometimes an entire day, at hospital dispensaries for their necessary medications. Quite often too, after travelling far distances from their homes, these patients were told that the medicines they needed were not available and, as a result, they had to purchase their needs from private pharmacies.

Since then, we have been pleased to see the CDAP expanded and placed on a well organised footing. Indeed, the plan may now be regarded as a major improvement in the delivery of public health care since it has been opened up, as of November 1, to apply to the population as a whole. It now means that not only the elderly but every citizen of TT suffering from non-communicable chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and arthritis may obtain their necessary medication free of charge from any of the 220 private or 110 public health pharmacies participating in the programme. All they are required to have is a CDAP prescription which may be obtained from private or public health doctors.

There may well be some teething problems which the expanded programme may have to deal with, but it seems unfortunate that such a plan should come under attack from persons who should know better. The suggestion made by one senator and taken up by officials of the PSA that Super Pharm, the consortium of investors setting up a chain of Walgreens-type pharmacies in Trinidad, had based their decision on “insider information” is both questionable and lacking in substance. The idea, in fact, that such modern multi-million dollar pharmacies which would enhance the country’s image are being established to benefit from filling out $10 CDAP prescriptions is quite laughable.

The silliness of this charge was made clear in a public notice issued on Sunday by NIPDEC which has been commissioned to administer the programme. The fact is that NIPDEC obtains the pharmaceuticals through an annual international tendering process and supplies them, at no cost, to all 330 participating pharmacies. As a result, there is no question of pharmacies benefiting from price mark-ups and the idea that Super Pharm stands to benefit from a plan in which patients are free to obtain their medications from any of 330 pharmacies in the country is totally absurd. Protected by privilege, senators and members of the House are free to make any allegation they wish in Parliament but they lose credibility when they use that shelter to play cheap politics by attempting to tarnish, without evidence, the character of persons on the other side or the efforts of persons who may be connected to them. Joseph Rahael, the 33-year-old son of Health Minister John Rahael, is one of the five private investors behind the Super Pharm enterprise, but that relationship cannot be used to deprive him as an individual citizen of his right to engage in legitimate business investments. The allegation that Super Pharm was conceived in order to benefit from CDAP on the basis of “insider information” is so ridiculous as to be almost malicious.

The fact is that the so-called “insider information” about CDAP has been public property since ex-Health Minister Imbert introduced it more than 21 months ago. As our record would show, this newspaper is ever insistent on the need to maintain transparency, accountability and honest dealing in public affairs. By the same token, we have a responsibility to be even handed, and not to allow false or impious charges against those who represent us to go unchallenged or unclarified.