The Federation of Cyprus Patients' Associations (OSAK) has called for an end to the system of named requests for medicines, saying patients should be able to obtain the treatments they need quickly and easily without having to go through additional approval procedures.
Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency (CNA), OSAK spokesman Demetris Lambrianidis said delays in the examination of named requests remained an issue, particularly for medicines used to treat diabetes and obesity.
He said the federation wanted medicines to be incorporated into the General Healthcare System (GHS) so that patients would not have to follow a separate procedure to obtain specific treatments.
“There are medicines which are not included in the GHS and a person has to go through a process for them to be approved in their name,” Lambrianidis said.
He added that OSAK did not have figures showing how many patients had been forced to interrupt or change their treatment because of difficulties obtaining medicines.
However, he said that even if only a small number of patients were affected, the situation should not occur.
Delays reported for obesity treatments
Lambrianidis said named requests were particularly problematic for diabetes and obesity medicines.
He noted that the issue was not related to a lack of quantities at production level, but that the named-request process could create delays in supplying the medicines.
He said the Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) was working to include the medicines in the GHS system so that named requests would no longer be necessary.
The federation spokesman also raised concerns about stocks at some hospital pharmacies, saying that insufficient supplies were sometimes available because of poor planning, despite medicines being available in central state warehouses.
He noted that diabetes medicines affected more than 100,000 patients, making it a particularly large patient group.
Lambrianidis also called for greater public awareness and prevention measures concerning diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.
He said Cyprus had been slow to implement such measures and warned that the high number of people affected by these conditions could lead to further complications and additional suffering for patients.
HIO says timely access is a priority
The Health Insurance Organisation told CNA that ensuring timely and uninterrupted access to necessary treatments and medicines remained a constant priority.
The organisation said it was working continuously with all relevant stakeholders to improve and simplify procedures, with the aim of providing beneficiaries with faster access to the treatments they need.
Regarding reports of medicines being unavailable to beneficiaries, the HIO said a pharmaceutical company had recently withdrawn a number of medicines from the market, some of which had been unique products.
In cooperation with the Directorate of Procurement and Supplies, the organisation said it had immediately begun procedures to secure the affected products from abroad.
For medicines included on the GHS Pharmaceutical Products List that require prior approval, the HIO said the examination process did not exceed two to three weeks.
Named requests involving medicines not included on the GHS Pharmaceutical Products List are handled according to their urgency. Life-threatening requests are examined immediately by the Emergency Cases Examination Committee.
The HIO stressed that no patient who had been approved to receive a medicine through the GHS had been required to discontinue their treatment.
High demand contributing to obesity treatment delays
The organisation acknowledged that delays were occurring in medicines for patients seeking to start obesity treatment.
It said there was a large number of requests to begin such treatment and that they were being examined strictly in order of priority.
The HIO said it was working intensively to include obesity medicines on the GHS Pharmaceutical Products List, which would eliminate the need for named requests.
Such a change, it said, would simplify and improve the process, allowing requests to be examined more quickly and improving the service provided to beneficiaries.
“At the centre of every effort is the patient and their real needs,” the organisation said, adding that its priority was to ensure every patient had timely and uninterrupted access to the treatment they required while limiting waiting times and inconvenience as much as possible.
Pharmacists report no major shortages
Meanwhile, the president of the Pancyprian Pharmaceutical Association, Ploutarchos Georgiades, told CNA that pharmacies were not currently facing any particular problems with medicine shortages.
He said that when a prescribed medicine was unavailable, the system automatically allows it to be substituted with a generic medicine.
Pharmacists inform patients of the alternative, he said, and the patient decides whether to accept it.
According to Georgiades, almost all customers agree to use the generic medicine until their prescribed product becomes available again.
He added that most prescriptions currently involve generic medicines.
Source: CNA
