As drug shortages continue to exist in the Greek market, the health ministry and the National Organization for Medicines (EOF) finally decided to take measures to tackle the problem.
The four measures covering the entire supply chain are thought to address the shortages and defend the protection of Public Health and Greek patients, according to official announcement.
The four measures are:
Ban on exports is a measure that is applied temporarily and selectively with the aim of securing the needs of patients.
Pharmaceutical companies will significantly increase the quantities of drugs circulating in the Greek market in the next period of time, which is also their obligation.”
Pharmacies are obliged to declare their sales and stocks. For this reason, a special platform will be put into operation within the week.
Administration of medicines that are in short supply or limited availability will be made by pharmacies to patients only if they have been prescribed electronically.
Any shortage or difficulty in finding medicine must be reported by pharmacists and doctors on the EOF platform.
“Administration of medicines that are in short supply or limited availability will be made by pharmacies to patients only if they have been prescribed electronically.”
In my experience there are, or at least were, drugs that doctors want to prescribe that are not in the electronic database. They were accidentally omitted from the original database when it was created by a software contractor. Only that contractor has the capability to amend the database and the government had no funds to pay them to do so. I don’t know if any of them are in the shortage category but if they are this decision is preventing doctors from providing what they think is the best treatment for their patients.