Ecuador: Shortage of medicines critically affects cancer patients

In Ecuador, great inequities persist in access to the right to health, particularly for patients with this disease, due to the shortage of medicines, Wilson Rivadeneira, executive director of the Cecilia Rivadeneira Foundation for the fight against cancer, told Sputnik.

“Those who can receive oncology treatment are those who have godparents, levers, or money to finance medical treatment,” he assured amid a national debate over drug shortages.

Merino insisted that all the other patients who do not have a position that allows them to procure the medicines are in a waiting queue, either waiting for a bed or for the medicine to be available.

“The situation is very painful, very critical, and merits a determination on the part of the political actors, the ruling class, to be able to unblock this very painful situation that we are all facing,” he said.

In the case of children with cancer, on whom the work of the Cecilia Rivadeneira Foundation is focused, the activist said that the situation is critical.

He said that in 2022 he participated in a technical round table with the vice president of Ecuador, Alfredo Borrero, with leaders of social organizations, and some commitments were made, but “nothing has happened”.

The situation is affecting the entire population, emphasizing patients with cancer, rare and catastrophic diseases, who have organized themselves in a National Alliance for Health to fight for the right to receive medicines.

After the 18-day national strike, the federal government decreed an emergency in the health system to free up resources to alleviate the supply of medicines without overcoming the problem of the supply of drugs.

The Ecuadorian government has implemented the so-called “Medicina Cerca” program, which is already being applied in 6 hospitals in 4 cities of the country: Guayaquil (west), Cuenca (south), Portoviejo (west), and Quito (north).

Through this mechanism, private pharmacies where the hospitals are located provide patients with the drugs that are in short supply in the public system without the patients having to pay for them.

“Through this agreement, we have 100% of drugs that are in private pharmacies, so we raise our supply level,” said the Minister of Public Health, José Ruales.

An investigation, now in possession of the ministry and carried out by a national anti-corruption commission, revealed the existence of a network made up of seven groups that have controlled supplies and medicines to the Ecuadorian public sector for at least a decade.

With information from Sputnik