Patients took advantage of the superintendent’s presence to express their complaints, which were addressed.
News Colombia.
The National Superintendent of Health, Luis Carlos Leal, arrived by surprise at one of the Audifarma dispensaries in Bucaramanga during an inspection, surveillance and control.
Several patients were at the facility to receive their respective medications when they were visited by the official, who found several irregularities and, apparently, the drugs were not being delivered or were being delivered incompletely, with the excuse that they were out of stock, when in fact they were.
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“We at Supersalud carried out inspections at the Audifarma headquarters in Bucaramanga. It is not that there is a shortage of some medicines and supplies, it is that they do not want to deliver them,” wrote the superintendent.
During his time at the dispensary, he spoke to some people who were waiting to be served, who told him that they had been waiting for hours or that they had been told that the drug or input they were going to request was not available.
Users would have been denied medicines or supplies
At that moment, there was a user who apparently had not received the complete prescription and the employee asked one of the employees in charge of the delivery: “What medicine is it that they cannot deliver in full?”, so they immediately proceeded to deliver the entire prescription. “Oh, yes! It is possible to deliver the complete prescription to the lady,” he said.
Another case that the official attended to was that of an elderly woman who was going to claim diapers, which were denied because, according to them, they were out of stock. Leal called the attention of the employees and administrators of the Audifarma headquarters because, in reality, there would be availability. In the video published by the same superintendent, the existence of diapers is clearly seen. “If they are here, why don’t we give them to them? … The lady was going to go home without the diapers because they said they didn’t have any, and there were,” he claimed.
From the @supersalud We carried out inspections at the Audifarma headquarters in Bucaramanga. It is not that there is a shortage of some medicines and supplies, it is that they do not want to deliver them.
We work to guarantee the right to health for everyone! pic.twitter.com/3fpwscasez
— Luis Carlos Leal A🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ (@LuisCarlosLealA) August 27, 2024
Finally, the superintendent ruled out a shortage of medicines and supplies in Colombia, so he went against the dispensaries and attributed the situation to them.
President Gustavo Petro spoke out on the matter and wrote on his X account: “Hiding medicines is a crime. Every employee of companies where medicines are hoarded against patients has the duty to report it to the Superintendency of Health.”
Audifarma responded
In a statement, the pharmaceutical company said that “the health system and its entire supply chain are facing one of the greatest challenges in their history,” pointing largely to the scarcity of resources in general.
They stressed that there is no strategy to restrict the delivery of the medicines. They also clarified that the product that was allegedly being denied to users was a stock that was reserved for home delivery to patients who had attended during that week.
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