Ho Chi Minh CityAbout 10 days ago, Cho Ray Hospital ran out of some drugs on the list of drugs covered by health insurance, many kidney transplant patients had to buy drugs from outside, costing 6-15 million VND.
A patient who had had a kidney transplant at Cho Ray Hospital was re-examined on April 26. He was prescribed by a doctor, including 4 special anti-rejection drugs, with the note “The patient is self-sufficient because the pharmacy has run out of drugs”. Normally, these drugs are paid for by health insurance, he co-pays just over 100,000 VND.
This time, he took a prescription to three pharmacies to buy and they did not have it. At the 4th pharmacy, he bought two types, Advagraf and Cellcept, with a total amount of about 11 million dong. Because he couldn’t bring enough money, he could only buy some, then went back to the inn to borrow money and then came back to buy more medicine to last 28 days.
People who have a kidney transplant must take long-term anti-rejection drugs and take them daily, with a follow-up visit once a month. Therefore, the above patient said that he could not help but buy 4 anti-rejection drugs despite difficult economic conditions.
The patient’s prescription for re-examination after kidney transplant at Cho Ray Hospital with the note that the drug was missing Advagraf 5 mg; Advagraf 1 mg; Advagraf 0.5 mg; Cellcept 500 mg. Image: Provided by the patient
Luckily than the above case, a male patient had a follow-up visit last week, so the hospital had one medicine left, he just bought one more medicine from outside, so it cost nearly 6 million dong. “The majority of kidney transplant patients have economic difficulties due to limited health, unstable work, low salary, so this is a large amount of money for us,” the patient said. He expressed his fear of buying medicine outside the hospital for fear of not ensuring the quality.
In recent days, some people can’t buy medicine right away, but have to order the next day, the bill is about 10 million dong depending on the case. While waiting for the drug, everyone in the kidney transplant group borrowed from each other for temporary use because “afraid that a day’s lack of medicine might affect the transplanted kidney”.
The patients expressed their wish that the hospital would soon have the medicine, or if they asked to go out to buy it, they could pay the bill later.
The patient’s drug bill from a pharmacy outside the hospital. Image: Provided by the patient
Dr. Pham Thanh Viet, Head of General Planning Department, Cho Ray Hospital, said that these drugs belong to the national bidding group for drug procurement. The shortage of drugs for kidney transplant patients is due to the slow waiting time for drug bidding results.
On April 28, the hospital had a meeting with relevant departments to organize the appointment of contractors and early procurement of drugs for patients. To solve the immediate emergency situation, the hospital is preparing documents for direct procurement of about 20% of the drugs in advance, which is expected to be available in a few days for patients. The remaining drugs will be auctioned openly, about 15 days later.
Patients and family members wait in front of the kidney transplant clinic, Cho Ray Hospital, on the morning of April 28. Image: Le Phuong
Reply VnExpress, Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Social Insurance Nguyen Thi Thu Hang said that the agency has worked with the director of Cho Ray Hospital to have an early solution to avoid affecting patients’ interests. Ms. Hang also said that Cho Ray is preparing to purchase in the form of contractor appointment because of a shortage of drugs, due to a bit late waiting for the national bidding package.
This agency is working with Cho Ray Hospital to find more solutions. In the immediate future, when the drug cannot be supplied in time, Cho Ray will transfer patients to another hospital that has drugs such as People 115, University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh City. Currently, the lack of specific drugs to prevent kidney transplant rejection only occurs in Cho Ray because the number of patients monitored here is large, other hospitals do not have this situation.
Yesterday afternoon, Ho Chi Minh City Social Security sent a written request to Cho Ray to quickly organize the selection of contractors to promptly supply the above drugs for medical examination and treatment for patients. Hospitals also need to regularly review and forecast the drug supply situation, to ensure enough medicine.
Over the past 30 years, Cho Ray Hospital has successfully performed more than 1,000 kidney transplants, accounting for nearly one-fifth of all kidney transplants nationwide. About 1,500 patients are being monitored for post-transplant follow-up at Cho Ray, including transplant patients transferred from some other centers for treatment.
Le Phuong
at Blogtuan.info – Source: vnexpress.net – Read the original article here
