Portugal is running low on “all kinds of medication”. The problem is “serious” across the board and growing steadily. The news comes from the national medicines authority, Infarmed, which reports that stocks of 716 pharmaceutical drugs are “at rock bottom”, and 43 “have no other alternatives on the market”.
Worst affected are antipsychotic drugs, medication for epilepsy, blood medication and treatments for Parkinson’s disease.
“Patients go from pharmacy to pharmacy looking for what they need. Some even go all the way to Spain,” Infarmed’s secretary general Nuno Flora told Jornal de Notícias.
The reason for the dilemma is two-fold, he added, and difficult to fix. On one hand, prices have been forced so low that suppliers have lost interest in keeping the market stocked. On the other, dire financial straits suffered by pharmacies mean they are all running on shoestrings, keeping stocks to a minimum.
Flora warned the situation will only change if its root causes are tackled.
