The president of the State Health Services Administration (ASSE), Leonardo Cipriani, denounced that the increase in the demand for medicines caused by the shortage of 97 drugs in public health caused an increase in the prices of some products. “We had a vial that used to cost $38, and now with this that it began to be scarce, they raised it to $239”criticized the chief at a press conference.
The entity will ask the laboratories and the Ministry of Public Health (MSP) to take measures to avoid this price increase, because otherwise ASSE would have to invest “the entire budget” to buy more expensive drugsemphasized the president of ASSE.
Cipriani announced that the body will send between this Tuesday and Wednesday the list of necessary medications to each laboratory to cover the shortage of the 97 drugs, some of them with partial shortages, and others with total shortages.
Each hospital will send the number of drugs necessary to cover the demand, and they will ask the laboratories to “quote” the order and “guarantee” the delivery of the productsCipriani said. “We have the money”he valued, adding that ASSE’s budget is $4,123 million.
The hierarch hopes to reach a “good agreement” with national laboratorieswhich highlighted had “good availability” from the beginning of the conflict.
According to the president of the state entity on June 18, the conflict was due to a fire in the Uruguayan Pharmaceutical laboratorywhich caused “a number of products to stop producing and the other laboratories are overloaded“. “We want to solve this problem in two weeks”assured that day.
The hospitals they can “go on a while longer” in this situation of scarcityvalued Cipriani, but affirmed that they want to be “foresighted” and solve the conflict as soon as possible, to stop replace missing drugs with alternative, and sometimes more expensive, productsin order to meet the demand.
