Essential medicines continue to disappear from the shelves of Greek pharmacies. There is a shortage of antibiotics for children and painkillers.
The list of medicines in short supply today includes analgesics (Panadol), vaccines for children, injectable insulin (Ozempic), children’s antibiotics (Amoxil 500 mg, Augmentin 475 mg), cortisone creams (Fucidin, Fucicort), anticonvulsants, eye ointments ( Tobradex pom, Tobrex pom), drugs for the thyroid gland, lists Vanessa Lazaropoulou, vice-president of the Trikala Pharmaceutical Association. She says, quotes newsbeast.gr:
“Many medicines are in short supply. Even when we receive them, it is very little and they are in short supply. Out of ten patients who need the drug, we can only help one. It is difficult to provide a course.”
The daily motto of pharmacists is “to run out of supplies” (“εξαντλήστε τα περιθώρια”). Very often, if a pharmacist has a drug and does not need it, he passes it on to his colleagues, and in cases where the drug is in short supply, the patient’s doctor is contacted. Particularly worrying is the serious shortage of painkillers for cancer patients, as well as children’s antibiotics, Ms Lazaropoulou says:
“Of all the virus outbreaks we have had this winter, amoxicillin has proven to be the hardest drug to find in our pharmacies this year.”
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