The analysis of the illegal sale of nationally produced medicines led to a meeting between the main officials of the Health sector in the province of Holguin, the directors of the three provincial hospitals, the supplying companies, pharmacies and opticians and those responsible for the security and protection of the main health institutions.
According to the acting head of the Medicines Department of the Provincial Health Directorate, “this meeting was very important because emphasis was placed on the necessary control of medicines and expendable materials, a requirement that was extended to the rest of the resources with which the health sector works. This analysis is based on the increase seen in recent months in the different digital platforms of publications that promote the illicit sale of nationally-produced medicines”.
While months ago it was observed that the illegal sale of medicines from international laboratories predominated, there is currently a trend towards the predominance of Cuban medicines.
In this regard, the pharmacoepidemiologist also pointed out that the control mechanisms are not yet well strengthened to prevent this from happening in the province. Hence the need to increase vigilance and for the safety and security departments to fulfill their role.
Role of the Pharmacotherapeutic Committee
The Pharmacotherapeutic Committee is a permanent and mandatory technical body responsible for overseeing the rational use of drugs. It includes scientific, teaching, methodological and control actions.
It is timely to call the conscience of the directors as the maximum responsible of the Pharmacotherapeutic Committee of their institution and the secretary who is the pharmacoepidemiologist. A strength in this sense is that in all municipalities there is a pharmacoepidemiologist, even in polyclinics, depending on the human resources available, a physician responsible for this program has been appointed.
It is still a challenge to achieve greater accompaniment of the pharmacies on drug sales days, which complements the control in addition to the regulations for prescribing prescriptions, locating physicians as close as possible to their place of residence and the regionalization of prescriptions.
Work is also being done to identify people, both members of the population and workers in the sector, who are regulars in community pharmacies on the days when the medicines in the order are marketed.
At present, the measures to be applied in the municipalities are being reviewed to ensure that the most needy are the ones who receive the medicines.
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