At a time when the crisis of shortage of medicines in the Ministry of Health facilities is still casting a shadow on the ministry’s performance, responsible sources said there is a weakness in the medicine budget, which requires an increase in order to end the crisis.
The sources told a local Arabic daily that the annual budget “estimated at about 520 million dinars for fiscal 2021/2022” deducts from it amounts allocated as previous invoices for medicines supplied through local companies, which makes it difficult to provide new orders for medicines.
The sources confirmed that the current budget requires an increase of between 200 and 250 million dinars, to ensure that challenges and obstacles to supplying medicines, especially new ones, are overcome.
According to the sources, the annual budget for medicines rose to approximately 520 million dinars, after it was 490 million in the previous fiscal year. However, the increase in population and the launch of new hospitals and health centers require an increase in the budget in return, indicating that these facilities need to provide all kinds of medicines and medical supplies and laboratories tests.
They stressed the importance of overcoming obstacles to requests for medicines and medical supplies by the regulatory authorities, especially with regard to eliminating the long documentary cycle and the necessary approvals for the supply of separate medicines, whose arrival in the country may impede the progress of specific treatment protocols for patients.
The sources pointed to a number of challenges facing the import of medicines from abroad, most notably the small quantities that reach Kuwait, compared to what the Ministry of Health requests from international companies and local agents in addition to the repercussions of the Corona pandemic, which still casts a shadow on global factories, the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the increase in the cost of pharmaceutical manufacturing on companies, and global shipping and transportation.