How do they treat me: how do they check the quality of drugs that are provided free of charge in hospitals

[ad_1]

Perhaps you have heard stereotypes that only inexpensive or low-quality drugs can be obtained free of charge in hospitals. I will surprise you, but this is absolutely not the case. Most of the drugs for free treatment are supplied to medical institutions by Medical Procurement of Ukraine. In particular, we are talking about orphan and cardiovascular diseases, hemophilia, oncology, viral hepatitis, multiple sclerosis, etc. And we check them very carefully to make sure that only high-quality drugs will go to you. How exactly? Now I will tell you in more detail, sit comfortably. Preparation for purchase Traditionally, everything starts with inquiry and planning. Every year, each hospital submits its need for drugs. That is, the amount of the drug that she needs per year, given the number of patients. Then this information is verified by the Ministry of Health, taking into account the already available drug residues in hospitals. Also, “orders” are checked by expert groups of the Ministry of Health, consisting of doctors, representatives of the patient community, etc. Only after all approvals are made, the data about the need is transferred to us – the only national purchasing agency for further purchases and deliveries. To understand the scale of these purchases, I will explain with an example: during the year, more than 2.5 thousand pallets of medicines pass through our warehouse. Up to 1,300 pallets can be stored in the warehouse at the same time during peak loads. Every year, we purchase medicines worth billions of hryvnias. It is important for us that patients receive high-quality drugs. Therefore, the verification process begins at the stage of preparation for procurement. What are we doing? We thoroughly analyze the market. We study which medical products are offered by Ukrainian or foreign suppliers. Based on this, we form the medical and technical requirements for the product. This complex phrase actually means certain criteria that the product must meet. For drugs, this is the expiration date, packaging, lack of contraindications for children, labeling, etc. But that’s not all. In order to purchase high-quality medicines, we make other demands on suppliers. For example, we check the certification of the factory where the medicine is directly manufactured. Quality control After arrival in Ukraine, medicines undergo customs control. Next, several more stages of verification await them, each of which is extremely important. I will dwell on this in more detail. First stage: verification of documents and observance of temperature conditions during the delivery of medicines to the warehouse of the MZU (standard mode +15 – +25°C, cold – from +2 to +8°C). If everything is normal, the medicine is shipped to the warehouse. The second stage: inspection of each package, bottle and recalculation of their quantity. So that not a single bottle is broken, and the packaging is not damaged. Third stage: required only for some drugs that come from countries without strict regulatory policies. In this case, a small amount of such a batch is sent for laboratory control, based on the results of which the State Medical Service provides a quality opinion. We are talking about all states, except EU member states, Great Britain, USA, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Israel. Only after passing all the checks, the medicine is delivered to the hospitals, where it is provided to the patients free of charge. Health is the highest priority As you can see, the process of checking medicines is quite complex and responsible. It consists of many stages, each of which is very important. At first glance, it may seem that all these analyzes and checks take too much time. However, the effectiveness of treatment, and sometimes the health and life of the patient, depends on the quality of the drugs. That is why it is important to carefully check each package and each bottle. Oleh Klyots, head of the logistics department of Medical Procurement of Ukraine, specially for UP.Zhyttia Publications in the “View” column are not editorial articles and reflect the author’s point of view exclusively.

[ad_2]

Original Source Link