Medicine bottlenecks in Germany update: The new winter season is coming with a growing number of missing medicines and such a simple one like saline solution added to the list made many healthcare organizations draw attention to the insufficient political measures again.
According to the BfArM website bottlenecks affect 501 medicines. However, the new chairman of the Association of Innovative Pharmacies (VIA), Benedikt Bühler, speaks of more than 1,500 essential drugs that are missing – including antibiotics, cancer drugs, and pediatric medicines. In a VIA press release this Tuesday, it is said that the crisis has worsened dramatically since last winter without the federal government having taken decisive measures. Bühler thinks: “The inaction of politicians is no longer acceptable.” It is “scandalous that in a highly developed country like Germany, the supply of vital medicines is no longer secured.” For Bühler, the political approaches to date are “half-hearted and without any noticeable effect.”
The additional measures suggested are bringing pharmaceutical production back to Germany. Up-to-date focus on the lowest price destroyed the supply chains actually. In addition, the VIA chairman calls for new, flexible pricing and remuneration models to enable the cost-effective production of generics and to reduce price pressure on manufacturers. It’s time for pharmacies to get “real support. Cosmetic measures are far from sufficient here.”
Furthermore…
The need for an emergency plan to be established was emphasized, which makes it possible to import medicines quickly and unbureaucratically, build up central stock stocks, and develop an early warning system that helps pharmacies to identify and circumvent imminent bottlenecks in good time.
Bühler criticized the present situation with the discount contracts also, because they destroyed the market with the only purpose of short-term cost reductions. Unfortunately, such a policy in the long term endangered the manufacturing and delivery of the medicines.
The board members of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), Andreas Gassen, Stephan Hofmeister, and Sibylle Steiner, also agreed with Buhler’s words: “The Federal Minister of Health must act! Now! The federal law introduced last year to combat supply bottlenecks is not having an effect,” they explain in a press release this Tuesday.
In response, the Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach commented that although one year passed since the Bottleneck Act (ALBVVG) came into force, another one would be necessary to show the full effectiveness of the law.
Source of this news/article update on Medicine bottlenecks in Germany: Drug supply bottlenecks: Bühler calls for a “radical change of course”
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