Myriam Balaa wrote in Al-Markaziya:
“President Najib Mikati and the Minister of Public Health reassure patients with cancer and incurable diseases that the medicine will continue, and the state will continue to support them, and support for medicines for cancer and incurable diseases will not be lifted.” Representative Bilal Abdullah spoke from the government palace last Thursday… but he commented, saying: In the past year Special withdrawal funds have been relied upon, and now we need special funds for this file. The budget of the Ministry of Public Health is in our hands to be studied and approved. We want it to be devoted to the issue of hospitalization and to covering hospital bills for patients, and for it to be multiplied at least fifty times, as happened in the State Employees Cooperative. To reduce the hospital burden on patients.
However, in the face of the scarcity of financial resources and the decline in borrowing opportunities, the fear remains that support will be stopped unexpectedly, and patients with cancer and incurable diseases will fall into the forbidden, God forbid!
Head of the Pharmacists Syndicate, Joe Salloum, reveals through Al-Markazia that “whether the subsidy is lifted or not, the drug available on the pharmaceutical market in the first place is not subsidized, and the subsidized drug is sold at an unsubsidized price, and therefore patients search for the subsidized drug but cannot find it… and thus Subsidies for these medications have been lifted in one way or another.
“We are in a very bad situation,” says Salloum, and he regrets that “the reality of cancer patients is very bad and heartbreaking, because the majority of them decide to stop their treatment or move to another treatment… These are massacres committed against patients with cancer and incurable diseases.”
He explains in this context, “We need $30 million monthly to cover the cost of importing medicines for cancer and other incurable diseases such as multiple sclerosis and others, while only $5 million of this amount is available.”
Pointing out that “pharmacies are now receiving subsidized and unsubsidized medicines,” Salloum points out that “those suffering from these diseases do not have access to the subsidized medicine, due to its loss from the pharmaceutical market, which forces them to buy the same medicine, but at an unsubsidized price of thousands of dollars.”
As for counterfeit medicine, he considers that “the problem today is not stopping the sale of medicine on the black market, as there is no will to stop smuggled medicine nor to close illegal pharmacies.”
2023-12-25 12:24:27
#situation #bad.. #massacres #people
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