Doctors and pharmacies are finding it very difficult to obtain antibiotics for sick children and babies. This can be read in the ED. The shortage is very bad and very worrying, says Ellen Huijbers. She is a director of the Eindhoven organization Stroomz. This includes 29 large-scale general practices and health centers in and around Eindhoven.
There have been shortages of medicines in the Netherlands for some time. At the end of last year, there was a shortage of antibiotics for adults throughout the Netherlands. Antibiotics are a basic need, Huijbers emphasizes in the newspaper. According to her, almost everyone needs it at some point in their lives.
Indispensable
Antibiotics are indispensable in the treatment of serious bacterial infections, such as pneumonia, meningitis and blood poisoning. Adults and children are rarely able to recover from this on their own. Young children, especially infants, should be given this medication in liquid form.
According to Huijbers, the shortages are a result of supply problems among producers in Asia, on which the Netherlands is dependent.
She estimates that doctors and pharmacists in the Eindhoven region currently spend a third of their working day scraping medication from somewhere. According to her, this is all at the expense of regular care. Doctors and pharmacists in the region are currently conducting intensive consultations about the current situation. There are national consultations with Health Insurers in the Netherlands.
Buy as cheaply as possible
Until now, The Hague has left purchasing to health insurers. According to Huijbers and Cees Dekkers of Service Apotheken, the fact that medicine shortages are increasing every year is partly because they purchase as cheaply as possible. This keeps costs low and therefore health insurance premiums low. For the same reason, they encourage pharmacists to have as little stock as possible, Dekkers explains in the newspaper. According to him, all this makes the chain vulnerable.
According to Dekkers, when medication becomes scarce, manufacturers prefer to supply to other countries in Western Europe, because they pay better.