Medicine is my calling and I focus my current ambitions in community health promotion through my role as a peer health educator and hospital volunteer. I am also gaining knowledge of how to help the community through my health promotion classes at KSU. Through the course of my pre-medical studies, I have come across different methods and plans of providing care.
During the 2015 spring semester when I was shadowing Dr. Rodriguez-Sfeir, a physician at Kennestone Pediatrics Associates, I asked him if there was a blueprint for community health. He explained to me the “three aims” concept that health care workers should strive for: (1) analysing population health, (2) providing quality care, and (3) lowering the cost of care. He went on to explain that a community population needs to balance the three aims in order to exceed its potential of health and wellness.
Thus, it has become my objective to join and build upon the mission toward preventative care measures. This means educating people about how they can prevent illness and disease and also investing in health screenings and medical research. It is when we get to the issue of treating an onset illness that the breaks screech on a patient’s path. What if patients do not have access to treatment because they cannot afford it?
According to the CDC, AIDS is an illness that is a common concern for college students. More than 50 percent of youth in the U.S. who have HIV are not even aware that they are infected. KSU Student Health Services does offer a primary care clinic, but making access to resources for HIV and AIDS care can be difficult. It is common knowledge that the average college student may work hours on end just to pay for a semester’s tuition, rent, and other costs that are on the price tag of higher education. Can college students who are AIDS patients afford their medication?
According to the BBC, it costs around 66 cents to make Daraprim tablets. These are the tablets taken by AIDS patients to prevent against certain infections. This medication has recently been through a price increase. We are not talking about just a few dollars, but rather a price inflation from $13.50 per tablet to about $750.00 per tablet. Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals which owns the rights to Daraprim, defends the price hike stating that the money from sales will be invested in medical research. Is it just a coincidence that the price hike is only weeks after Turing Pharmaceuticals received the rights to Daraprim? What happened to making care affordable?
Keith Blankenship, a senior who is majoring in biology and pre-medical studies, expressed that “a slight price increase is acceptable, as long as the funds are going towards either research or education and prevention measures.” I agree that a small increase in the price for Daraprim may not cause much of a reaction by patients, as long as affording the medication is still in their means. Also, having a low set price on Daraprim may cause less stress on preventing AIDS and HIV in the first place, which would be counterproductive.
The intentions of the pharmaceutical companies themselves should also be taken into consideration. They should be looking out for the wellbeing of patients.
“Companies spend so much on research to develop these drugs that they almost always start with an extremely high price in order to make their money back before other companies are able to develop off brand generics of the product,” said Kendall Cooper, a senior biology major and an aspiring doctor. “So the price hike after initially being set so low makes no sense.”
It is up to the pharmaceutical company as to what is spends its profits on, but it is also its responsibility to make sure that it is on a mission for better health. There is no reason to work the system only in the favor of profit when you are handling the lives of patients.
Finding a balance between doing well in big business while also doing well on a medical mission can be tricky. There is no room for being selfish when providing care. As for CEO Martin Shkreli, his intentions can only be reflected through the work and research that his company does over the course of the next few years. It is through the teamwork between health care companies, health care workers, and pharmaceutical companies that we can create and provide affordable quality care.
