Ministry urged to make meds available
THE Ministry of Health needs to ensure its pharmacies are stocked with relevant medication, ensuring that the public do not spend unnecessarily to purchase them from elsewhere, says the
Fiji Council of Social Services (FCOSS).
While lauding the budget’s initiative towards the health sector, FCOSS executive director
Vani Catanasiga said it needed to reflect in the easy accessibility of medication.
“In a budget survey that we carried out, majority of the people shared their hardships in getting medications from pharmacies in hospitals because they had run out of supplies,” said Ms Catanasiga.
“If we continue to run out of medication supplies then there is no use in having free medication.”
Last week, this newspaper received complaints from members of the public who were advised to purchase Salbutamol (asthma medication) tablets from private pharmacies.
Nabua resident Maikeli Sautaki claimed he had to spend $15 to purchase three packets of the tablet from a private pharmacy after his mother was told that supplies at the Valelevu Health Centre were out of stock.
Mr Sautaki said this was worrying because the current cold climatic conditions made asthma patients vulnerable.
In an interview last week, Minister for Health Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete told this newspaper he was not aware of the claims regarding Salbutamol shortages, adding they would look into it.
“As I have said, there are issues that we face on a regular basis, the Fiji Pharmaceutical Services has been networking with its partners to try connecting the dots,” he said.
“There was a shortage in anti-hypertensive medication supply in Fiji and around the world because of the issues of lockdown and the inability of manufacturers to make them.
“We will look into these issues.”