Pharmacy “panic” … it’s the next health accident!

Elie Ferzli wrote in the newspaper “Al-Akhbar” under the heading “The idea of” canceling drug subsidies: the next health collapse! “:” Since Riad Salameh announced that it could no longer bear importing fuel, medicine and wheat at the price of 1515 pounds per dollar, and chaos has invaded the markets. But if bread or gasoline cannot be stored for a long time, this does not apply to the drug. Most medications have a shelf life of more than one year. In exchange for the fear of doubling their prices, if subsidies are lifted, the solution is for those who have the capacity to buy quantities of drugs to stock as many as possible. This is a case that pharmacists play well. Employees are the ones looking to stock up more, in exchange for the indifference of the rich and the inability of the poor to buy more than they need each month.

As a result, those who go to the pharmacies find that many medications have been lost and their replacement has been lost. Most of them are medications for chronic diseases, which would be dangerous for the patient to stop taking them. Therefore, it has become common for patients or their families to go to dozens of pharmacies in search of a drug. These are of two kinds, whether they’re looking for storage in an attempt to face the decision to raise the price when the time comes, or looking for a specific drug that they didn’t find where they were used to. This issue is likely to continue until the outcome of the support is clarified. Is it still as is, is it modified or canceled? The unions concerned, namely the Union of Importers, the Union of Pharmacists and the Medical Union, held a joint meeting to assess the situation. No one has the magic solution to return the markets to normal, despite the fact that the importation of medicines and their distribution continues at the same rate, despite the complaints of importers about the delay in opening credits, and despite of complaints from pharmacists about the rigor of agents with them and their insistence on obtaining the price of drugs in cash or with a slight delay. These are problems that the industry regularly faces, but they do not contribute to the suffering of people whose demand for drugs has increased dramatically. What is required, according to the head of the Importers Union, Karim Jabara, is that any of the officials come out to assure people that the drug will continue to be available and that its price will not change. This is the only solution for the sales movement to return to normal, but it is impossible for a simple reason: no one knows what will happen, even if all stakeholders confirm that the pharmaceutical sector should be treated in a different way and more humane. If the car can be abandoned in case gas prices are high (even in the absence of public transport), then it is impossible for patients to give up drugs.
Until the real direction of the government and the Banque du Liban was clarified, these unions intended to agree on a series of measures through which they seek to preserve the actions to the maximum, the most prominent of which are:
Agents contribute to pharmacies the share they usually get, without increasing or decreasing, which prevents pharmacies from selling to non-customers, especially for drugs for chronic diseases.
Pharmacists sell a box of the required medication, even if larger quantities are available.
Doctors are obliged not to prescribe medication for more than a month, even if the patient used to receive their medication for longer periods.
They are measures that deal with results, but mean that the crisis will continue. Therefore, there is no other solution than to face medicine as a red line that cannot be crossed, because its high price constitutes a humanitarian crisis that cannot be contained. This requires, according to stakeholders, promptly announcing the drug’s exclusion from any decision to reduce or stop support.
According to the information, the Ministry of Health also believes that this is not the time to withdraw drug subsidies, especially since there are no alternative plans that allow people to obtain drugs at a reasonable price. Ultimately, all industry leaders believe that if the subsidy is removed from everything, it is assumed that the drug will not be affected. Read the full article Press here.