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What does it mean to reach the forbidden? … It means that the basic drugs that cancer patients use are cut without having alternatives. This is exactly what the prohibited means with the arrival of a number of breast cancer patients on the brink of despair after daily rounds of more than one pharmacy in search of two basic drugs, namely “tamoxifen” and “nolvadex. “, which are used during the treatment phase, etc. Then. And they are, according to the World Health Organization, one of the essential drugs that are given to patients with breast cancer to prevent recurrence of the disease, as well as for hormonal treatment.
About two months ago, these two drugs were lost and are no longer effective in most pharmacies. And the discontinuity continues until now. No one has a definitive answer to what is happening, while patients “ask” what they can from the associations and in many cases between them. The day before yesterday, this led the president of the Lebanese Breast Cancer Association, Dr. Naji Al-Sagheer, to raise his voice and demand the immediate provision of tamoxifen due to the dependence of a large segment of patients on this drug, estimated by Al -Saghir at 30,000.
“Of 40,000 patients with breast cancer, 30,000 have their lives and health at risk due to the discontinuation of this drug.” Al-Sagheer confirms this, based on the fact that tamoxifen is the most widely used, since “70% of patients have cancer receptors. Female hormones and they need this drug (…) for five to ten years. However, none of the stakeholders seem to consider what this means for patients fighting cancer recurrence on this drug. So far, none of those involved has come out to explain what is happening, neither from the Ministry of Health, nor from the Union of Importers of Medicines, which insists on responding to the reasons for the delay of the Banque du Liban in the processing of import applications from abroad.
Yet all of this means nothing to a patient, for whom medication has become “a matter of life and death,” according to pharmacist Joe Salloum, who “disappeared” from his pharmacy shelves “two or three ago. months. ” Today, Salloum does not know if the drug is broken down or stored. In light of the rationing policy practiced by drug importers and warehouse owners, and given the “prosperity” of smuggling activities due to the cheapness of many drugs, today pharmacists and patients do not know the decisive answer . What they know is that they are deprived of medication. This deprivation is twofold: neither Brand nor Generic protect them from the evil of cancer returning to the cells.
Here, some who come into contact with breast cancer patients speak of the “psychological decline” that accompanied this disruption. In this context, Hani Nassar, one of the founders of the “Barbara Nassar Association”, which works to provide medicines to cancer patients, points out that “what is happening today is a disaster”. Nassar was born from the obsession that the association, which worked to obtain medicines, is today trying to “loot” the conditions of some patients by working to get as much of this drug as possible, in addition to the drug “Nolvadex”, through “patients who do not They need it or They have extra cans that they can do without. ” Today there are no other solutions, while the demand for drugs increases day by day as the crisis intensifies.
Not tamoxifen, not Nolvadex … and jerks. It is expected, according to those involved, that he will lose other medications. Although no one can answer the reasons, it is possible to return to similar circumstances that four months ago led to the discontinuation of diuretic drugs (such as burinex and Lasix) used by patients with heart disease and patients with chronic kidney failure. At that time, there were two reasons, the first of which was the apparent reason related to the delay in opening credits by the Banque du Liban. As for the other, which is the main one, it is related to the control of drug traffickers of the quantities they distribute, and “especially in light of the work of some of them to store quantities to sell in case of raising the subsidy to double. of prices or smuggle them and accumulate profits. ” This is the same reason echoed by the head of the Pharmacists Union, Ghassan Al-Amin, based on the fact that the price of the drug, which amounts to 15 thousand pounds, is today, because of its low price, a business profitable.
The Ministry of Health fights drug smuggling through barcodes
Recently, the Minister of Public Health, Hamad Hassan, implemented “cracks” in drugstores and pharmacies in various regions, which ended up confirming the presence of smuggling activities outside of Lebanon, in addition to storing medicines in preparation to be sold at high prices later. Faced with this reality, Hassan held an emergency meeting yesterday, in which the captains of pharmacists, Ghassan Al-Amin, and of the pharmaceutical factories of Lebanon, Carol Abi Karam, and drug importers and warehouse owners, Karim participated. Jabara, to follow up on the “open file” of the drug. The meeting was an occasion for Minister Hassan to announce the new drug monitoring and control mechanism. In this context, Hassan has indicated that “a monitoring mechanism will be applied that allows knowing the quantities shipped and how they are delivered and distributed through the use of barcodes so that the drugs and pharmacies that have been dispensed can be tracked. He considered that the priority today is to ensure the drugs for patients through a “fair distribution”, provided that the Ministry of Health continues to track each missing drug “in an inverse manner, so that the defect and the reason for its loss can be determined.” . As for the fairness of distribution, for Hassan, it means a total rejection of the policy of drug importers and warehouse owners to deal with the pharmaceutical sector in a “stratified” way.
Assuring the minister that “the quantity of medicines in the warehouses is sufficient for a period ranging between two and three months,” he asked “to rationalize the distribution of these quantities in a way that ensures the needs of the people until the end of the year” and until “Secure an additional amount sufficient for another three months of money that is not yet available at Banque du Liban.”
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