Here is an email which a pharmacist sent to me today
Hi Daphne,
I’m one of your silent readers but I decided to write today and maybe you can write a blog-post about this. Something about me: a pharmacist working within the community, who has been working with the Pharmacy of Your Choice Scheme since January 2012.
Never have we had a list of out-of-stock items so long as it is now. Nearly every patient coming to collect medicines is being issued with an out-of-stock note.
This requires the patient to come back to the pharmacy every week to check whether his particular drug has been sent to us from the POYC section. Not to mention the numerous telephone calls we are getting from frustrated patients…
One particular drug, Omeprazole, has been out of stock since May/June. A small supply was distributed about three weeks ago to some pharmacies, which supply was depleted within two hours.
We later received a circular telling us to distribute on a fortnightly basis as opposed to the normal two-month supply. Last week, to my surprise, one box (56 tabs) was distributed as an urgent supply. Urgent supplies come in small sealed blue boxes so the delivery man has to open the box in front of the pharmacist and we have to sign for receipt against an invoice.
I got to know later that the POYC department has issued urgent invoices for one box of Omeprazole to each pharmacy. What a disgrace. Dawn x’qed jahsbuna. U jien din il-kaxxa lil min ha naghtiha?
Never has this part of the health sector been in such an awful state as it is now. And we, the pharmacists, are left to face the music, after the government promised that the problems in supply will be dealt with. Before being elected, they promised that they would deliver medicines to the patient’s door at home, and now they can’t even deliver them to the pharmacies.
I would greatly appreciate if you don’t show my name if you come to report on this. Thanks and keep up the good work.
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This week was the first time ever I had to buy medicines which were previously free under the scheme. The pharmacist was embarrassed and apologetic….not his fault of course.
Good for you, pale blue my foot! There is always a first time. Mine took place eons ago and I’ve been paying for my own medicinals ever since.
Remember, nothing is free. Someone has to pay. It must be your turn.
Not sure whether you should stop the meds altogether, or else double the dosage, kev.
Whichever measure serves the purpose of stopping the involuntary outpouring of mindless crap you seem to be suffering from.
It seems there’s no thought process applied to your obtuse scrawlings at all. Maybe professional supervision would aid your predicament?
Well done, Mr Dent. You are improving, I must say. You didn’t have to drop your surname, it was bound to happen anyway.
Well, what do you know? Kev’s outed himself as one of life’s innate scroungers who start out expecting things to be free.
Why am I not surprised?
Well that’s Labour Malta for you, kevvy.
I think that we, as pharmacists, need to take some sort of stand on this. Where is the Chamber? Silent as ever. And then they wonder why some of us choose not to be members. At least with the Pharmacy Council membership you get to keep the warrant. With the Chamber fee you get deafening silence.
The whole system is a joke. Just look at the people appointed by the government on the board of the Pharmacy Council and the new head of the Medicines Authority. It’s enough to make you want to break down and cry.
The chief of the Pharmacy Council, fiddling while Malta burns.
Let’s face it, those who believed that medicines would be delivered to their door step are either naive or simply stupid.
If Lawrence Gonzi had made that promise I wouldn’t have believed him either, because to do something like that you need to drastically increase man power and resources in a sector where both are limited.
And you also need to change the law to allow a delivery man, rather than a pharmacist, to dispense drugs to patients.
36,000 of them
[Daphne – Can we stop this 36,000 business? It’s mathematical and political nonsense. A majority of 36,000 is the result of a movement of 18,000 people, not 36,000 people. I’m bored with explaining this. If you start off from a draw – an equal number of supporters for each party – and you take 18,000 supporters from the PN and give them to Labour, PN is down by 18,000 and Labour is up by 18,000, which means that the GAP BETWEEN THEM, which is what the majority is, is of 36,000. But only 18,000 people have moved.
And another point: it’s not ‘36,000’ who voted Labour, but a hell of a lot more than that. What was it – 166,000?]
There are lies, damned lies and pre-election promises.
This is the waste (hela) that Edward Scicluna promised to address during the past few years. Everyone who visits the Mater Dei hospital knows that patients are now asked to bring their own small items as well (such as bandages and cheap tablets).
These health services (together with expenditure on education) was always considered as waste by the MLP. This cost cutting has become more urgent given the higher costs to maintain the Ministries and payroll of the staff employed by the MLP ministers (an additional EUR 6 million per year).
Once again, well done cross-voters, thank-you for voting for change, you got it. Pity that we have to lump the changes with you. Only a moron would have believed this electoral promise…
You know, I’m beginning to wonder about how we all said that Muscat’s promises were impossible to keep because they were too expensive.
We all said, ” Where will he get the money from?” because there was no where to get it from.
Silly us, we didn’t think that is was perfectly possible to get the money from somewhere, anywhere in fact.
And Minister Weepy Farrugia gave himself a target of solving the out-of-stock problem by the 4th year of this legislature. Of course he shall do so, as soon there will be no medicines to dispense. Reading in-between the lines of Minster Finance Scicluna, he’s already hinting that tightening of finances are targeted in the Education & Health sector.
Simon Busuttil tried to explain the issue of out-of-stock medicines on that infamous television debate with Anglu Farrugia but everyone was so busy trying to make heads or tails of what Anglu was on about that nobody was listening.
In the rush to gain votes and demonise Lawrence Gonzi’s government, a non-partisan issue (medicines, and indeed all other products, regularly go out of stock according to supply and demand) was turned into a partisan one. Market realities be damned.
The market hasn’t changed and the same problems still exist, but after milking the issue for every vote possible, Labour can’t turn around and say ‘Hey, medicines go out of stock sometimes. Deal with it’
People expect medicines to be available, and rightly so. That is what they were promised. They also expect them to be delivered to their doorstep as promised during the electoral campaign.
Labour failed to think long term and now they find themselves stewing in their own juice.
The medicines saga is one of the many instances in which a press bedazzled by Joseph Muscat’s glossy campaign failed to ask the right questions and carry out vital research.
It makes all of us who saw this, and many other similar issues, coming from a long way off want to bang our head against the wall in frustration.
As a fellow pharmacist, I can sympathize with my colleagues.. The amount of abuse we are getting is incredible, including threats of being reported to the town’s Labour MP.
Then there are the boxes which arrive without even proper documentation – ‘kuntrabandu’, for those part of the clique.
The only funny thing, if you can call it that, is the stupefied look we get from some Labour patients: ‘Imma kif jista jkun? Issa hemm Joseph fil-gvern!’
It is understandable how frustrated this pharmacist is working in this difficult situation because, what do you call a pharmacist who is unable to provide medicine?
Frustration (or rather, the danger, which is the flipside of this sad story) is the patient who is consequently not medicated.
This arguments of stock-control and related issues should have never be “politicised” but unfortunately it has been done already and can never be discussed maturely enough.
In any case, it is sad that our Health Minister declared that the issue will be solved in four years time, which is surely an unacceptable compromise. Why four years? What will happen in the meantime? Status quo as is explained in the email of this helpless pharmacist?
I urge the government and opposition to create a real competent task team to address this issue, treat as urgent and to make this matter a higher priority which must be solved in the shortest possible time.
The promised reform in the medicine sector is valid as the I-pad promise to ALL (repeat all) schoolchildren. But all in all the people get the government they deserve. Full stop.
I have today received a call from a good friend in Malta, embarrassingly asking me if I could buy two boxes of this particular Omeprazole, from overseas, and send them over by post as they simply couldn’t get their hands on it in Malta.
If this isn’t back to buying basics from overseas, then what the hell is?
Bastards, kicking us back down to our knees again.
Next it will be Nicky Azzopardi who beat himself up.
http://www.orizzont.com.mt/FullArticle.php?ID1=%27Ahbarijiet%27&ID2=110018
Dear Daphne
Reference is being made to yesterday’s press conferences:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130902/local/malta-strikes-oil-procurement-deal-with-libya.484551
I am not sure who was responsible for flag protocols but I have a feeling they got it wrong:
http://gov.mt/en/About%20Malta/Documents/OPM%20No%2014_2004.pdf
Keep up the good work.
Anthony
I just called my POYC Pharmacy to inquire about a number of out of stock items which were not given to us more than 15 days ago.
Salbutamol inhaler; Aspirin tabs, Omeprazole caps, Perindopril tabs, Aterovastatin.
During the election campaign I heard Louis Grech say that there will be no medicines out of stock under Joseph’s government as HE would be getting them by courier service from abroad. I am waiting for them now.
Out of stock pills are part of a Labour plan to cut costs and pass them on to the consumer.
For elderly persons this translates into a reduction in their pension. What irks me is the fact that the opposition, namely the shadow minister for health, has not yet embarked on a campaign on radio and print to explain to the public the true facts regarding current serious problems in health care in general.
Back to the Police Commissioner.
He has ordered an ‘internal inquiry’ to establish what led to the arraignment of an innocent person by the CID.
So it’s a magisterial inquiry for Taliana but an internal inquiry for the CID.
“…..he has given the inquiry board two weeks to draw up a report on the mistake made by police officers from the Criminal Investigation Department.”
The CID made a mistake but The Commissioner is seeking advice whether Taliana can be accused in a criminal court.
Someone has his back to the wall.
Dear Daphne, my mother was in hospital a few days ago. She is 88 and has been put on a drug called Clexin 140mg.
These are injectible drugs which cost 200 euro for 10, so we need 600 euro per month.
They said that she is not entitled to these for free because she doesn’t have cancer and because she is not pregnant. So now we have to buy them for her because she is a widow and the pension she has is not enough.
So how about that.
To be fair that is not a government issue but rather a Medicine’s authority issue were an inter-professional comittee make these pharmacoeconomic decisions. How much government pressure (if any) is put on this commitee I do not know, so it is unfair to speculate.
It is a bit brutal but decisions are made on the lines of either Clexane for 10 people or anti hypertensive therapy for 100 people. Money unfortunatly is an issue and so is number of people served and patient age. That is why the issues of wastage and illegal entitlement are so important, as they chip away at the total pot of money. But that, and the need for the introduction of prescription charges on par to the UK, is a different issue.
Din hija sitwazzjoni gravi hafna u perikuluza. U min jiehu pilolli tal-qalb, pressjoni u tal-kolesterol u jkunu out of stock, x’ser jaghmel? B’penzjoni ta’ Eur360 fix-xahar zgur li ma jistax jixtri.
It’s worse than that for anyone who is in a residential home and has just Euro 130 every four weeks left out of his/her pension and has to buy these expensive medicines.
I wouldn’t expect to receive the medicines at home but at least to have them available at the pharmacy.
Now let’s see what’s going to happen in the education sector when so many youngsters were getting a boost with so many courses available.
Why oh why do Labour always have to change things that are working well?
I’m afraid this is what the majority of the Maltese electorate voted for…for a change – to the WORST!
It is NOT what the majority of the Maltese electorate voted for. The stupidly credulous majority voted for an illusory promise of a change for the better and for a Malta supposedly for all of us. That promise was intentionally a deliberately deceptive fraud.
The voters are blameworthy only because in their majority they were incredibly stupid and gullible.Those whom they elected to warm the government benches are guilty of a consciously constructed mass fraud.
That truth will soon be forced inevitably down the throats of even the most severely blinkered Labourites and before then down the gagging throats of the selfish shifters who caused the tragedy.
The only concern of this government is cost-cutting, regardless of the damage. I listened to a programme on RTK with Franco Mercieca as guest and he mentioned the cost cutting proposals in the care for the elderly sector.
I advise those interested to hear the programme to understand that old people now will be provided with private care in the PPP scheme which is much cheaper than government care.
I am one of those patients who are entitled to Omeprozole under this scheme.
And yes, since May my registered pharmacy has not been supplied with them.
Nor has it been able to give me a small amount of pills as an urgent request.
Since May I have had to buy these expensive pills at my own expense because I cannot survive without them. I have chronic hythis hernia and the pain is literally unbearable.
The cost may not seem like much to many people, but it makes a difference to me: 12 euros a week for two pills every day.
The government has not yet declared what type of strategy it will be taking to start distributing the pills again as soon as possible.
People are suffering healthwise and financially also.
People get the government they deserve.
I still haven’t heard of anybody getting their drugs delivered home for them…
Toyger, the Chamber of Pharmacists is silent. Only through websites like this can we drive our message home.
I’m a pharmacist too. The POYC scheme is beneficial to the patients and we are ready to give a good service to them.
But with all these items out of stock we are seeing most of our patients every week leading to an increased workload and less time to give advice, which is what we are there to do. We would appreciate having the authorities shoulder their responsibility.
Write to your authorities and register your views there. At least outline to them the practical problems pharmacists face in trying to deliver a safe service to patients.
As long as my cabinet is stocked with Viagra, I have nothing to complain about.
[Daphne – I know of no man old enough to require Viagra who goes by the name of Jason. All Maltese Jasons are post Jason King and did not have parents inspired by the leader of the Argonauts.]
Dan qed jigri biex bhal fil-kas tal-Arriva buses tigi abbolita s-sistema u jonqsu ukoll ammont sostanzjali ta’pilloli li jitqasmu b’xejn.
I never had any problems before March in getting my daughter’s medicine from the hospital except for the occasional one or two rare items out of stock.
But last time I went seven out of 13 items were unavailable and what is more shocking is that I went to a pharmacy in Birkirkara and they had them.
So I obviously complained with the health department’s customer care desk, and was told “Sinjura, iva hemm medicina out of stock ghax ahna qed naghmlu l-budget fuq il-medicina ghax hemm hafna abbuz.”
“Imma mhux sew ghax ahna diga ghandna piz f’ hajjitna li ghanda tfal b’kundizzjoni,” I said to her, and she replied, “Heqq, allura ghamel budget int ukoll f’hajtek halli ikollok minn fejn tixtrila l-medicina.”
Next time I went over for supplies, I was given all that I need, and I am sure they had a note in system when they entered my ID number.
Oh, and another thing – they gave me one supply of medicine which expired at the end of August and told me that I should keep giving it to my daughter because shelf life is always longer than expiry date.
I have had to buy Umdur tablets for the first time in years for my elderly father.
I was expecting the pharmacist to be ringing his door bell according to the promises made repeatedly by Louis Grech, Karmenu Vella and Joseph Muscat, and not the other way round.
Today I saw many elderly and disabled people being made to climb the steps at Mosta Clinic because the lift has been out of service since last week or more.
What this pharmacist said is true. My mother used to obtain hydralazine from her pharmacy but she was sent to Mater Dei Hospital as they did not have any.
At the hospital we were told it was out of stock and to go back two days later, and then we were only given a two weeks’ supply. My mother is 74 years old, and I work full-time and we do not need all this hassle.
Although I am sorry about these deficiencies I am actually happy about it because finally everyone including people who voted Labour are going to experience the difference.
My only concern is whether they have the gall to admit their mistake and vote differently in the next election. I’m worried to see that they may actually like the feeling of chaos and uncertainty, because it allows them to do as they please.
This morning I’m running out of stock of letrozole (used in cancer treatment), ranitidine, atorvastatin, fluoxetine, flupentixol, quetiapine, simvastatin, aspirin (one of the cheapest drugs on the market) and many other life-saving drugs. And this after all the promises of 6 months ago.