(Eqtsad)- Om Ali, a diabetic with heart disease lady from a remote village in Western countryside of Damascus, waits at door of health centres begging for treatment and the medication she needs after becoming unable to afford for her life-long drugs.
She was offered new medication different from she used to, but she had no alternative but to accept, provided she pays SYP.2000 for the physician’s visit each time she needs to renew the prescription.
She was offered new medication different from she used to, but she had no alternative but to accept, provided she pays SYP.2000 for the physician’s visit each time she needs to renew the prescription.
The Head of Syrian Pharmacists Association, Mahmood al-Hasan, in a statement to a regime-loyal news website explained that the Pharmacist Association has run many educational courses to people in many occasions to explain the violation of dealing with medication and the need for monitoring and cooperation between the Association and Ministry of Health.
However, the reality is that pharmacies sell the medication they want and whatever the source is, and the Pharmacist Association cannot charge or penalise any pharmacy for selling smuggled medications or those do not meet criteria, due to chaos prevailing in the country, beside taking personal benefits and acquaintances in account, due to lack of locally manufactured essential drugs for diabetes, heart disease, cancer as a result of economical collapse after depleting the country’s sources in the war against Syrian people.
within a year, my diabetes drugs have been changed many times, while the hypertension medication I need to change from time to time according to the doctor advice. "Sometimes I bring my medicine from Lebanon because the Syrian medicine is not effective according to my doctor, as the private medical factories put small amount of the effective component in drugs," Ismael.Y told Eqtsad.
The Head of Pharmacists explained that smuggled drugs are difficult to monitor and inspect, while the imported medicine are monitored and inspected. However, many people detailed that most imported medications are from Iran, and there are emotional barriers with that fact, which pushed some people to abandon the Iranian drugs and prefer to buy it at high price from Lebanon, according to Abo Hussein, who refused to take penicillin because it was Iranian an preferred the one smuggled from Lebanon.
Another problem face patients, as they cannot afford for the price of Western drugs due to high price compared to other available medication, because the Syrian pound value has fallen tragically.
Trading in medicine has become one of the most important trades in the country, as Pharmacists, traders, regime officers at the Lebanese-Syrian borders play role in letting drugs in the country and cooperate with traders to control prices.
Smuggling drugs has become one of the most difficult work to do, as accusation of supporting terrorists would face anyone caught carrying more than one box of medicine, and other surgical equipment used in minor surgery like syringes, needles, sutures, surgical scalpels, local anaesthetics and others. Therefore, officers at boarders play the main role in controlling the medication entry to the country, according to their personal benefits of course, not for people’s best interest.
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