The most beautiful memory that Manuel keeps in his mind is the shape of his mother’s face, Rosa Álvarez. He is 4 years old, but when he was 5 months old he was diagnosed Cancer in the retina, for which he lost his left eye.
In March 2020, her other eye was removed, turning off the last light she had to see her. “What’s wrong mommy? Why is everything dark? I remember what your little face was like, but now I can only touch you and not look at you like before, ”she asked him all the time.
Now he needs custom eye prostheses that cost $1,200. He walks with the help of his older brothers and attends therapies for people with visual disability. Rosa Álvarez assures that getting medicines has become an ordeal.
“I lost my job and we stopped visiting the doctor. In the Public hospitals there are no medications for my child,” he said. He fears that he will later develop an osteosarcoma as a result of eye cancer (retinoblastoma) as has happened with other infants.
This is how Scarlett, 7 years old, lived it. Her father, Luis Yacelga, said that she had a leg amputated because she first had a retinoblastoma. She also lost her eyes. Her parents have obtained 90% of the remedies through Solca, but it is difficult for them to buy the syrups to prevent seizures. “I’ve seen other kids need eye drops and creams.”
Access to medicines has become a nightmare for cancer patients from the country.
For this reason, since last year there have been several sit-ins due to this problem. For Rafael Palacios Bravo, president of the Association of Parents of Children and Adolescents with Cancerthe lack of medicines is worrying, because by abandoning treatment, patients can die.
From January 2021 to date, the activist said, 40 infants have died due to not accessing prescriptions and appropriate care. “If they do not receive a drug, patients become metastatic and death is certain, even if they are given the doses later.”
Faced with this situation, the Ministry of Public Health (MSP) reported that it has implemented strategies to guarantee supply. One is the centralized purchase that has been given progressively.
However, the health authorities are promoting other processes for the acquisition of drugs, such as an electronic catalog, minute amounts and electronic reverse auctions.
The branch minister, Ximena Garzonalso pointed out that for each public procurement process there is a contract administrator who is in charge of checking that the names of drugs are correct and that their expiration date is within what is established. It also checks that the specifications are met.
Regarding the outsourcing of medicines, this consists of people approaching any of the pharmacies in the country that have adhered to the agreement to withdraw the prescribed prescription by a public hospital doctor. Then the MSP will cancel the values. The first phase of the project will be applied in the third week of March.
Health hopes that the new supply mechanism will be maintained indefinitely to serve the public.
For Palacios, there are improvements in the delivery of drugs, but that does not imply that the protocols. “The percentage does not justify, because what the Ombudsman asked the hospitals has not been presented.”
The information on the budget for the purchases has not been clarified either. In his opinion, the supply must respond to annual planning and not apply “patch solutions”.
Gustavo Davila, director of the youth against cancer foundationwhich supports 1,380 ‘warriors’, stated that the lack of medicines is one of the problems they currently have to face.
According to data from that organization, 38% of its patients survive from working in street sales, 32% have a stable job, 23% work in agriculture and 7% carry out other activities to survive.
81% of young patients, from 18 to 30 years old, do not have a job. One of them is Gabriel Sandoval (30), who is a Law graduate from the central University and has been off medication for over a year. “With my family we have to get from where there is none. We have organized raffles, solidarity bakes and whatever is necessary to earn income and buy what I need.”
He says that with the pandemic the problems began in the distribution medicines and asked the Government to help those who suffer from this disease.
The same was pointed out by Adriana Balseca, 52, who suffers from metastatic breast cancer. Last week she received some drugs after a month, but she did not complete what she needed. She had to buy some things on her own. Her husband helps her get the recipes to continue with the medical instructions.
He went back to intravenous therapies, for which he was spending $300 each week. She now needs USD 8,000 for foreign doctors to assess her health status.
Manuel and his mother live in a similar situation due to lack of resources. She analyzes the possibility of going back to the doors of the churches to ask for money as she did before. She says that charitable people He has helped her organize fundraisers, but now she needs a job to buy the prostheses. Your little one is at risk of losing eye cavities After a while.
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