Since the beginning of the war, the Affordable Medicines reimbursement program has included about 80 pharmacy chains, said Natalia Husak, head of the National Health Service of Ukraine (NSZU).
“It has become very valuable for us that pharmacies have expressed a desire to enter the reimbursement program during the war. Since March, we have concluded agreements with another 80 pharmacy chains, which means that 461 new pharmacies and pharmacy points have been added, where patients can get affordable medicine and insulin,” she said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Gusak said that currently 1,361 pharmacies are participating in the program, which in total have a network of more than 12.5 thousand holiday places throughout the country.
Pharmacies contracted by the National Health Service of Ukraine continue to work under the Affordable Medicines reimbursement program even under conditions of temporary occupation.
“The Affordable Medicine program works both in the occupied territories and where hostilities continue. For example, since February 24, pharmacies in the Kharkiv region have paid off more than 160,000 prescriptions for “affordable medicines,” more than 45,000 people have received drugs. The region’s pharmacies continued to provide people with insulin-dependent diabetes with the reimbursement program – 6940 people received life-saving drugs,” she said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to Husak, in the Donetsk region, 5,816 Ukrainians received drugs under the Affordable Medicines program, and 2,526 people received insulins.
At the same time, she noted that many pharmacies in the occupation cannot enter data into the electronic health system (EPS), therefore they also accept paper prescriptions.
The head of the NSZU emphasized that the ESZ and the dynamics of issuing and paying off prescriptions reflect the processes of migration – how people return home to the completely de-occupied Kyiv region, Chernihiv and Sumy.
“Starting from May, there was an increase in the number of issued and canceled prescriptions, and in June-July – a resumption of the pre-war period,” she said.
The program of reimbursement for the cost of medicines will be expanded from 2019, Deputy Minister of Health Roman Ilyk has said.
“We are working on supplementing the reimbursement project with new groups of diseases from the next budget year. Until the end of the current year, most likely, there won’t be an expansion of the program, as it requires financial security so that these amounts are pre-funded into the national budget,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
At the same time, Ilyk noted that “for the program expansion, it is necessary to make several changes that are related to the introduction of the policy of electronic document circulation.”
“The patient’s electronic card, electronic prescription, all the documentation regarding the doctor’s prescriptions should be kept in an electronic form. When these norms become effective, most things related to programs monitoring and everything around it will become much easier both for patients and for the medical staff and pharmacies,” he said.
As reported, the Ministry of Health intends to introduce QR labeling of drugs that participate in the reimbursement program.
