Havana/“This is payment in dollars since October 1.” The information this Tuesday surprised the few clients of the Seville hotel pharmacy, heard from the mouths of its employees. Until just a few days ago, it was an establishment where you could pay in freely convertible currency (MLC), but now only fula in cash, foreign card or the Classic prepaid method.
According to the same workers, the same thing happens in all the “international” pharmacies, such as the one on the ground floor of the Habana Libre hotel. Calling them pharmacies, in any case, is saying a lot, since the offer is poor and mostly focused on vitamin supplements.
Because it was even more surprising to the buyers to know that they did not have aspirin or dipyrone, common medicines. As for the prices, it is no longer impressive that they are high. Cough syrups between 13 and 19 dollars, laxatives at 11 dollars, vitamins – even those manufactured in national territory, such as Troffin – at more than 20 dollars. The items, as often happens in other state stores, even if they are of the same type, fill the shelves.
/ 14ymedio
“Antibiotics, painkillers, necessary things like that, are available on the left very easy, no one is going to come in and buy from you they those things,” explained a woman accustomed to this type of transactions. “They have come late to want to get dollars from the sale of medicines, and they know perfectly well that the entire black market has taken over that.”
Indeed, the list of medicines for sale on Telegram channels and “specialized” WhatsApp groups do look like a real pharmacy, at lower prices than the official ones. A young man who usually acquires his mother’s diabetes medications through these channels states: “Those pharmacies are going to fail.”
