Many drugs for the most severe patients in BiH are unavailable in pharmacies, and if any, their price is much higher than in the countries of the region and beyond.
Irma Šuman is a nice mood. As we talk over the phone, the word interrupts her smile. But not so long ago, it was completely different. Irmi is diagnosed with breast cancer.
It was a shock as it is hard to describe. She waited for her painstaking struggle for healing, and in the middle of that struggle, a parallel struggle with the health system of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
– Thank God, I’m done with that, “he says Al Jazeeri Irma.
– It was a horrible experience, starting to have cancer, and to his that chaos that was caused by a strong paperwork that sometimes I had no time or thinking about being sick – Irma continues.
Price price of 36,000 euros
As soon as the Oncology Clinic of the University of Sarajevo announced horrible news, Irma, as he suggests, experienced another, even greater shock.
He leaned on the radiator oncologist. It was as if it was awkward to say what he had said – a medicine that took me ten thousand marks (about five thousand euros). It was a bigger shock to me from the one when he told me I had carcinom – the story of Irma.
At least four therapies were to start, but it turned out that she still took six for a better effect. In the pharmacy of Din in Sarajevo, it was said that the needed immunotherapy does not cost ten, but 12,000 convertible marks (about 6,000 euros). In total, hope for healing costs 72,000 convertible marks (about 36,000 euros). He held that hope, who else than help. BA, who provided her with complete therapy.
– My first reaction was – I can’t. I don’t have. My doctor advised me to contact help. BA, which I did. The medicine was excellent. He seemed – says Irma.
Now she says good. But would it be if there was no action to help.ba?
Many Irmi has no luck. Waiting to find thousands of convertible marks, they receive a cure or mercy from the Federal Institute Fund for Health Insurance and BiH’s reinsurance, which is competent to refund the purchase of drugs for carcinoma patients, many leave this world.
– It’s a shame. Grief for this country in which these doctors send you in a pomois. If you want to live – it concludes Irma.
Why expensive and efficient cure instead of cheap and bad?
Many drugs for the most severe patients in BiH are unavailable in pharmacies, and if any, their price is much higher than in the countries of the region and beyond.
Examples works, Keytrud cure of 200 mg in BiH costs 12,000 convertible marks (6,000 euros), and in Turkey 3,200 euros. The 60 mg of 100 mg in Turkey is 100, and in BiH 200 euros without VAT and the pharmacy margin. Tententriq of 1200 mg in Turkey is two thousand euros, and in BiH 5,800 convertible marks (2,900 euros). And the medicine tagrisso company, which shows excellent results in the treatment of lung cancer, and whose arrival in pharmacies is expected, in Slovenia less than 3,500 convertible marks.
This remedy has been shown to halve the risk of death from the most common types of lung cancer if taken daily after the tumor removal surgery, according to the results of the clinical trial.
Alcatel Al Jazeere Sanja Krijsorac, who needs this medicine, told us that she received information that he would, when he came to BiH, cost – 13,500 convertible marks (6,750 euros)!
Why? Who determines the price of medications? Do anyone control them in Bosnia and Herzegovina? And if they have them in pharmacies, why long awaits them to their registration and import, if they have already been approved in the European Union countries, the USA or in any civilized country?
None of these answers Al Jazeera did not receive.
The Sarajevo Branch of the company Amicus, who registered the medicine Tagrisso in BiH, did not answer our inquiry until the end of writing text. In the pharmacy of the Din, which, accidentally, or not, are almost always mentioned in this context, as a pharmacy that has the most expensive drugs for serious illness, no one answered telephone calls.
Not even the response agency responded to the question of whether the powerful pharmaceutical industry and its lobby in the worst way exploit, offering a stroke to those who have a huge amount of money, and those who do not knowingly send in the embrace of death? Or there is a reasonable and understandable explanation for all that, but did not offer it none of the above.
In the Federal Institute for Health Insurance and Reinsurance, the IRMU, when inquiry for the ability to refund the medicine, asked, “Why are the oncologists advise such expensive drugs instead of so many other drugs”? (which has not been revised since 2019. years!, op. a.). So, in translation, their logic is “Why spend money on a set of medicine that is not yet on the list, and which works, instead of cheap who does not work, but there is money for him?”.
Drugs expensive because ‘little market’
How did the director of the Oncological Clinic of KCUs Semir Bešlija recently tell us, two leading agencies, the European EMA (European EMA) for 26 to the then approved drug, and approved nine new ones in a total of 19 solid malignant tumors and five Hematological malignant. In BiH, there is nothing on the list.
The Federal Ministry of Health is, as we were told in response to the request, the new list of drugs of the Federal Solidarity Fund, in accordance with the Federation of BiH, “prepare the most optimal list of medicines.
– When it comes to drugs for oncological patients in the FBiH, the problem is all – says Eldina Zolj-Balenović, a journalist of Sarajevo Liberation who has long written about this issue, which also fought the breast cancer.
– The list of oncological remedies has not been revised since 2019. Although we are provided by the law in our country to be revised each year. In all the countries of the world, this is two to six times a year – continues Zolj-Balenović.
When it comes to drug prices, as one of the activists who are fighting for the Sarajevo Association “Renaissance, NGOs that brings together or treated women, Eldina, says, once in question why they were so high.
– I got the answer to be a small market. And we testify to cheaper medications in Montenegro, which is even smaller the market, or Slovenia, say. In addition, the Commission prescribes the Commissions in the FBiH Health, so it is used all over the world for cervical cancer, which shows the commission, which does not see the patient, or only for the lungs, or just for the uterus. Well, the sufferers who provide a document that is not indicated by the Commission for their disease, must buy a drug without any chance that it will be refunded or will give up treatment. These medications are mostly a few dozens of thousands of KM on a monthly basis – says Eldin.
– Rarely who can handle multi-year therapy. Because, cancer is not treated for a month or two, but for years – she added.
Man under point ‘Other’
Through this story, according to many patients, here the problem is not oncologists, because they claim, follow all world flows and suggest the best medications. But they don’t follow others.
– We are aware that the oncology is a branch of medicine that makes the fastest and largest steps on the global plan. But for patients in BiH that means nothing. We are still treating old medicines, mostly cytostatics and hormonal therapies that destroy our organism completely. And, I must note that in recent months at the KCUS, these, basic therapies that are the letter and in the treatment protocol of oncological patients – says Zolj-Balenović.
She added that the “Renaissance” association is trying to understand the public and the system that is how this is a problem.
– Jaba is building highways, bridges, buy planes or trucks, if we remain without people. One should be in focus, and a man, that is, health, in the Law on the Distribution of the Federation of BiH, in the last place, in the point left, “she said.
– It is equally frustrated by the fact that the procedure for registration of the new drug in our country lasts a long time due to strong legal procedures. It seems, laws apply only when they are directed against man and life – she concluded.
