“There is no turning back for the e-prescription. It has made a major improvement in the 3 weeks since it was introduced,” said Deputy. the Minister of Health Prof. Ilko Getov told BNT, whose resignation was requested on Friday by the Bulgarian Medical Union.
On the occasion of the resignation, Prof. Getov explained that her request is hardly a political attack, as he is an expert and his work is evaluated by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health.
On the other hand, with electronic prescriptions, 325 thousand prescriptions for antibiotics were issued in 3 weeks, 70% of them were fulfilled, the share of canceled ones is rapidly decreasing. Until now, there were 1,500 canceled prescriptions per day, but yesterday, according to the deputy minister, there were only 700 of the 20,000 prescribed.
It was his proposal to sell antibiotics and diabetes medicines only with electronic prescriptions, after in August the parliamentary committee on health obliged the ministry to introduce electronic prescriptions for absolutely all medicines as soon as possible.
Despite its availability, due to the shortage of insulin in the pharmacy network, its export was prohibited after an official letter to the ministry from MP Delyan Peevski and Prof. Kostadin Angelov – chairman of the health care commission. With these two letters, the people’s representatives demanded that immediate measures be taken to limit the export of insulin and other drugs.
According to Ilko Getov, this order is on the edge of the law, as there is no text in Bulgarian law that gives the minister the right to limit exports. However, the export is also limited for the oral forms for children, as a shortage can be expected for them as well, Prof. Getov explained.
According to him, the export ban is until the New Year and it, together with other measures, will ensure that there are medicines. There is currently a shortage of only one insulin in the country.
At the same time, there is a group of people who want to lose weight through diabetes drugs, and this is the so-called off-label use, explained the deputy. the minister. This was very modern not only in our country, but also in the West, where there were entire clinics.
However, this is not the only reason for the lack. Prof. Getov explained that the Bulgarian pharmaceutical market is a function of the EU market and the lack problem is not only Bulgarian.
That is why there is an initiative in the European Union for a list of critical medicines. If it is missing in one country, it can be compensated by supplies from other countries under a mutual aid mechanism.
