Wednesday, 14 September 2022
Patients with chronic illnesses are still unable to access the medication they need because of a lack of supply, Yeniduzen reported.
It is reported that the government has failed to tender for the more expensive drugs and it is only because certain associations supply medicines that any are available at all.
Some patients have been unable to access the medicines they need for the past year. Meanwhile others have not been able to have blood tests because of a shortage of testing kits.
Yeniduzen reports that they spoke with the heads of the Thalassaemia Association, the MS Society and the Orthopedically Disabled Association.
President of the Thalassaemia Association Çiğdem Beşevlerli said, “The serum we need has not been available for a year”, while MS Association President Sibel Hançerli said, “One of the deficiencies is being completed, the other is decreasing. There are patients who have been unable to access medication for two weeks. People have lost hope“, she said.
Meanwhile, the President of the Orthopedically Disabled Association Günay Kibrit said, “We have not been able to access the materials required for meeting natural needs such as urine bags and catheters for a year“.
The state pays for certain drugs, and most of the drugs go out to tender without calculating the number of patients, and the drugs are either missing or the tender cannot be made, the associations stated.
Responding to the criticisms, Minister of Health, Izlem Gürçağ admitted that there was a problem accessing drugs, and claimed that “they had made the necessary phone calls and the problem was solved”.
