3 | 12/30/2020 – 8:17 AM (GMT-4)
The Cuban government has announced it will subsidize drugs to those who cannot handle the new drug prices, which will rise from January 1, as part of the monetary unification process.
“Even with the salary increase and cost increase, if someone cannot pay for a short treatment, they are treated through social assistance,” said Marino Murillo Jorge, the head of the Commission for Implementing the Guidelines.
The rise in the price of products in high demand, such as antibiotics and painkillers, which are no longer subsidized, is of great concern to the population.
The salary increase, estimated at 4.9 times, will be lower than the price increase that 54 percent of the drugs will undergo.
Ministry of Finance and Prices Resolution 345, published in Government Gazette No. 71, reveals that drugs such as amoxicillin, which can cost up to 33.70 pesos, while dipyrone, which was worth 3.50 pesos in 2018, now costs 13 times more , exactly 47.80 pesos.
In the middle of one serious and long-term shortages in the pharmacy networkIt was announced that the base drug table, which consists of 757 drugs in 2019, will be reduced to 619 products by 2021.
According to Emilio Delgado Iznaga, Director of Pharmaceuticals and Medical Technology at the Ministry of Health (MINSAP), the cause is the “financial tensions we have faced, the resurgence of the blockade and the situation generated by COVID-19. ”.
Among the drugs that are no longer produced are naproxen (anti-inflammatory) and sulfasalazine, used in digestive disorders and patients with ulcerative colitis.
The state will keep the prices of drugs associated with chronic disease with permanent treatments subsidized – which are sold with the known card -; those used long-term in patients with neurological and psychiatric disorders, as well as products of natural and traditional medicine, and those of optics.
Earlier, the government announced that it planned to allocate 7 billion pesos by 2021 to subsidize drugs. The amount is a minimum of the 30 billion that is intended to cover the subsidies in general in the country. More than half of that budget is (17,878 million) to subsidize the electricity tariff.
We need your help:
Just like you, thousands of Cubans they read and support CiberCuba independent journalism. Our editorial independence begins with our economic independence: no organization in any country funds CiberCuba. We create our own agenda, we publish our opinions and we give a voice to all Cubans, without external influences.
Until today, our newspaper has only been funded with advertisements and own funds, but that limits our options. We ask for your help for this. Your financial contribution will allow us to take more investigative action and increase the number of staff reporting from the island, while maintaining our editorial independence. Any contribution, large or small, will be very valuable for our future. Starting at just $ 5 and with just one minute of your time, you can partner with CiberCuba. Thank you.
Contribute now