A quarter of Swiss households have limited access to medicines

In the study, participants indicated whether they themselves, someone else, or themselves and another person in the household had not received the medication or treatment as usual. As a result, three-quarters of those surveyed thought it would make sense to produce more medicines in Switzerland, as Comparis announced Thursday evening. However, just under 16 percent favored paying higher drug prices.

A majority of those surveyed also favored more international collaboration so that key drugs and medical products could be offered by multiple manufacturers.

According to the announcement, 60 percent would also like Switzerland to allow the import of medicines and medical products if they are already available in countries with similar approval criteria. According to a majority, medicines should increasingly be provided in rations instead of fixed packaging sizes.

However, according to the report, medical bottlenecks were behind the healthcare premiums, housing costs, old-age provisions and high petrol and oil prices in the Healthcare Barometer. The representative survey was conducted in March on behalf of Comparis by the opinion research institute Innofact among 1020 people from all over Switzerland. (sda)