More and more users and families are complaining about the lack of medicines for chronic and rare diseases at the Hospital and University Center of the Algarve (CHUA). The complaint is made by Cristóvão Norte, deputy of the PSD elected by the Algarve, who speaks of the patients' “despair”.
According to the Algarve parliamentarian, in recent months there has been "an unusual increase in complaints from patients and their families about the lack of medication" in the Algarve's hospitals.
“Many of these cases, which have even been denounced on more than one occasion by the PSD deputies in the Assembly of the Republic, continue to manifest themselves, some of them even more serious. This leads patients, in despair, to go to hospital pharmacies to collect the medication that was prescribed for them - many cases of rare and chronic diseases - essential to preserve the quality of life of these citizens and, due to successive delays, see their clinical situation in danger, deteriorating, always causing a lot of anguish in people who are in a fragile situation», according to Cristóvão Norte.
The deputy of the PSD demands the Government “to provide the CHUA with financial and management instruments so that these progressively more recurrent failures are resolved and take measures to stop the bleeding in the region.
Two of the medicines in question, exemplifies the Algarve parliamentarian, are Privigen or Octagam, whose delivery «has been delayed indefinitely» and which are used for various conditions such as primary immunodeficiency syndromes, chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, Hypogammaglobulinaemia and bacterial infections, and congenital AIDS with recurrent bacterial infections, among many others.
"This is just an example. It is very important that the access to health of these citizens is not compromised, as many of them have high degrees of disability, recognized by the State in medical boards and the need for the medication to be applied in time is vital for their health" , concluded Christopher North.
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