The University Clinical Center in Sarajevo does not have a stockpile of Efavirenz, one of the drugs used as therapy for people living with HIV. Patients, meanwhile, use substitution therapies, whose regular supply is also questionable.
There is no answer from the Health Insurance Institute to the question of where the problem arose. Doctors from KCUS say that the medicine should have been delivered in early May, reports N1.
Sudden consumption
“Previously, the system was that KCUS needs medicines through its pharmacy, to procure them directly and then to be reimbursed by the Fund, now the system is a little different, so we send requests to the Health Insurance Fund, which essentially approves each of our requests, but then there is a delay I really don’t know the tender procedure, after the tender they have to sign contracts, and then there is a situation that those who signed the contracts can’t get that medicine from the supplier / manufacturer, mostly in the end we end up with no medicine we need in stock,” said Rusmir Baljic, infectologist working at KCUS.
As the doctors from KCUS were told, due to the sudden increase in the number of people living with HIV, there was a sudden consumption of certain medications, which is why the supplier is not able to deliver one of them. Replacement therapy was approved by the Commission of the Federal Institute of Health Insurance. Which is adequate, experts say, but the patient must be monitored.
Find a replacement
“If you do not have one of these drugs now, then you should find another drug and measure whether it is effective or not. It is not so tragic if it is done, but it should be done by experts, together with patients, and to get those drugs that they received earlier as soon as possible,” said Andrej Trampuz, an infectologist from the “Charite” hospital in Berlin.
Patients cannot and should not be without therapy. It is experiential and necessary. Otherwise, they are in danger of deteriorating their health. Every day, say the doctors from KCUS, they come to that health institution worried. Both hope that the drug Efavirenz, which is cheaper for the state, will be available soon.
