RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Even though some phar­ma­cies in South Trinidad have run short of some drugs dis­trib­uted to the pub­lic un­der the Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP), Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh is in­sist­ing there is no drug short­age.

Among the drugs, not avail­able are sim­vas­tatin used for cho­les­terol, sodi­um val­proate, sulpiri­de, methyl­dopa, blood glu­cose test­ing strips, tri­flu­op­er­azine, in­sulin  70/30 and Ven­tolin in­haler used by asth­ma pa­tients.

Pres­i­dent of the Phar­ma­cy Board of T&T An­drew Ra­haman said he has re­ceived re­ports of some phar­ma­cies run­ning short on one drug. 

While there was a tem­po­rary short­age of sulpiri­de, Ra­haman said that has now been re­solved.

"I am al­so aware that peo­ple have been or­der­ing cer­tain quan­ti­ties of drugs and were not get­ting the quan­ti­ties they want­ed," he added.

"I am not too sure they are do­ing too much of a good job of as­sess­ing how much drugs you need. They are do­ing it based on use that you are show­ing but in spite of that peo­ple have been com­plain­ing that they not get­ting enough. At one time re­cent­ly they were run­ning out be­fore they could get back more but that has been re­solved," he added.

But a phar­ma­cist in Pe­nal who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said some of these drugs have been in short sup­ply over the past six months.

But con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said there was no short­age of CDAP drugs.

In a state­ment is­sued lat­er, the Min­istry said an am­ple sup­ply of all drugs on the sched­ule are avail­able na­tion­al­ly. 

"This in­cludes CDAP drugs that are used to treat heart dis­ease, cho­les­terol, asth­ma and di­a­betes."

 The Min­istry al­so re­mind­ed phar­ma­cy op­er­a­tors that "while the pro­vi­sion of CDAP sup­plies to phar­ma­cies is done through a cycli­cal process, in­ter­im re­orders for spe­cif­ic drugs may be re­quest­ed, as per es­tab­lished process­es, and the re­quest will be ful­filled."

"Phar­ma­cies should sub­mit their re­quests for re-or­ders of med­ica­tion to the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Prop­er­ty De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NIPDEC) well in ad­vance of the de­ple­tion of stocks so that there will be a con­sis­tent sup­ply of crit­i­cal drugs for the pub­lic," the Min­istry added.

 Mem­bers of the pub­lic were ad­vised to vis­it al­ter­nate phar­ma­cies in their ar­eas to have their pre­scrip­tions filled through CDAP.

 "While all phar­ma­cies may not have every CDAP drug in stock at a par­tic­u­lar time, the Min­istry as­sures that there is an ad­e­quate na­tion­al stock of all CDAP drugs," the Min­istry said.

It added that the Min­istry will en­sure a ro­bust phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sup­ply chain and the de­liv­ery of qual­i­ty health care for the ben­e­fit of the cit­i­zens.