Argentina Pharmacies Hoarding Critical Drugs

by Marcela Valente

The country has been without a health minister since Dec. 20, when Fernando de la Rua was ousted as president by a wave of rioting and protests, leading to a situation in which the country had five presidents in just two weeks.

The director of the non-governmental Solidarity Network, Juan Carr, is overwhelmed by pleas for help. "Call me later because I have just 19 hours left to get immunosuppressors for a 28-year-old kidney transplant patient," he told IPS.

The lack of access to essential medicines by adult and child transplant patients is jeopardizing the success of operations that in many cases were performed years ago.

The transplanted organs could be rejected within the next few days if the patients do not receive their immunosuppressors, which without the support of the state or the health-care unions which normally provide the drugs, cost up to $2,000 a month.

"If they would just lend me one box," says a desperate Dario Gomez, 29, who received a new kidney five years ago and needs immunosuppressors that cost $250 a box.

Gomez needs one box a week, but the pharmacy will only sell it to him if he pays in cash. Like many others in this cash-strapped country, where limits were slapped on cash withdrawals from banks in late November, he simply does not have it.

The $1,000 a month cash withdrawal limit was adopted to curb a run on banks in Latin America's number three economy, which is in the 42nd month of a severe recession, with nearly 20 percent unemployment and 40 percent of the population living in poverty.

Many cancer patients who depend on chemotherapy are also in trouble, waiting for the acute social and economic crisis to calm down in order to have access once again to the drugs that could save, or at least lengthen, their lives and improve their quality of life.

Treatment for HIV/AIDS patients could also be interrupted within the next few days as anti-retroviral drugs are becoming scarce in public hospitals along with antibiotics, bronchodilators, anesthetics, serum and disposable medical equipment like syringes.

Nestor Loreto, the president of the Argentine League of Protection for Diabetics, described to IPS the critical situation of patients who depend on insulin.

Insulin-dependent diabetics cannot survive more than one week without their insulin injections to control the level of blood sugar, which the pancreas is unable to produce naturally. Over the past few days, people have come to the League offices for help, with blood sugar levels that threaten to tip them into a diabetic coma.

One of them was 39-year-old Alberto Rodriguez, whose wife Marcela visited the League to ask for enough insulin for "at least 10 days," because medical practitioners at the greater Buenos Aires public hospital where her husband is a patient told him that for the time being they could not provide any of the life-saving medicine.

"This is a criminal act that should be reported," said an indignant Loreto, who since Jan. 5 has received emergency requests from patients in a critical situation -- from the capital as well as the provinces -- which have been responded to by donations from laboratories.

Rodriguez told IPS that he has been a diabetic since he did his military service at age 19. Just before he was to be discharged, in 1982, the Malvinas/Falklands islands war broke out between Argentina and Britain. "They made me serve three more months, which had terrible consequences for me," he said.

For years, Rodriguez controlled his diabetes with insulin. But in 1999, his health took a turn for the worse, and he was put on a waiting list for a kidney transplant. He also has a detached retina, which leaves him blind in one eye. Three times a week, an ambulance takes him to dialysis.

"I receive five hours of dialysis, three times a week," said Rodriguez. "My wife wanted to give me a kidney, but we're not compatible. That's why I'm on the waiting list. And now this. I can't get any insulin, or even the test strips to check my blood sugar level."

His wife added that the crisis forced her to close her small business, which sold bathroom and plumbing supplies, which means she is also unemployed now.

There are an estimated 2.5 million diabetics in Argentina, 300,000 of whom are insulin-dependent. The cost of that treatment is $300 a month for the insulin itself, the test strips for blood sugar testing, and disposable syringes and other materials, all of which is normally covered by the public hospitals, health-care unions and private health services.

But the enormous debts that the health-care unions and private services have run up with the pharmacies over the past four months, plus speculative practices by pharmacies that are stockpiling merchandise while waiting for prices to go up in the wake of the nearly 30 percent devaluation of the peso on Jan. 7, have led to scarcity of certain products, and the interruption of patients' treatment regimes.

Loreto said laboratories had shown him receipts that clearly indicated that sales of insulin to pharmacies had shot up at least 50 percent in December with respect to the past few months. For example, one pharmacy, which generally purchases 250 blood sugar testing kits a month, ordered 1,000 in December.

The rise in demand points to hoarding by some pharmacies keen on turning a profit from the devaluation that everyone knew was coming.

On the other hand, the pharmacies, which deny that they are involved in speculation, complain that for four months the health-care unions and private health services have not paid for the drugs they purchase from the pharmacies at a discount.

The health services' debt to their suppliers has climbed to $600 million. The new caretaker government of Eduardo Duhalde pledged that it would urgently address that situation by creating a timetable for cancellation of the debts, beginning with at least $100 million.

Meanwhile, a judge ruled favorably on a lawsuit yesterday filed by the League of Protection for Diabetics and the office of the People's Defender. The verdict ordered that the situation of supplies of pharmaceuticals return to that seen prior to Dec. 3, when scarcity and lack of access to medicines began to be seen.