To raise awareness about the rational use of drugs, the government will spend 468 000 euros.
The funds money will be given to three marketing agencies that need to devise a campaign that will then be placed in the media.
Former Deputy Minister of Health Vladimir Lazarevik believes that this campaign is entirely unnecessary, it will not give any result and will only serve to achieve other goals unrelated to the health of the citizens.
– We, at the “Healthgrouper” for many years are committed for each promotional campaign to have their expected results that should be clearly measurable. For example, if the government is now doing a campaign for rational use of drugs, we must know how to assess the effect of such a campaign. We have to know what are the other alternatives available, such as the education of doctors by Centers for Family Medicine, by the Macedonian Medical Association and the like. Thus, by spending such a large amount of money for needs that, I will stress again, have only short-term populist effect, only seemingly deludes the citizens that something is done, and basically has no effect – considered Lazarevik.
According to him, populism does not work in improving the life span of the citizens, in reducing infant mortality and in indicators that affect health of people.
– We have witnessed in recent years that the government exceeded in the carrying out of populist projects in the form of advertising campaigns, which do not give any result. In the background of these moves something else is hidden, and it is an elegant and opaque way to show that something works, and for that something, you may not be able to log into trace of money – considered Lazarevik.
According to the report of the Health Insurance Fund for the consumption of prescription drugs last year the citizens obtained drugs to 19 million prescriptions, which is an increase from the previous two years.
