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- Window of denial: three regions do not dispense medicines for pituitary abnormalities
Window of denial: three regions do not dispense medicines for pituitary abnormalities
Since November 2024, at least three regions of Russia have not been issuing medicines to patients with pituitary abnormalities since November 2024, Izvestia has found out. According to the patient organization Velikan, Bashkiria, Tatarstan, and St. Petersburg are short of medicines that should be purchased at the expense of federal or regional budgets. Patients are given prescriptions, but the drugs are not given to them. In Bashkiria, in particular, the prosecutor's office intervened in the case and charged the regional Ministry of Health with the obligation to provide patients with medicines. The Republican Ministry of Health explained that they calculated the need based on the applications submitted by medical institutions. On why there were interruptions - in the material "Izvestia".
Where drugs were not issued
Patients with acromegaly and pituitary adenomas faced a shortage of vital drugs, told "Izvestia" chairman of the Board of the profile interregional charitable organization "Velikan" Ekaterina Andrusova. Acromegaly is an endocrine disease in which growth hormone is produced to a greater extent or continuously, it is accompanied by an increase in hands, feet and skull. And pituitary adenoma is a benign tumor, as it grows it causes visual disturbances and hydrocephalus.
The disruptions, according to the patient organization, occurred with drugs with the active ingredients octreotide, lanreotide and pegvisomant. All of them are included in the list of vital and essential drugs (VED). This list is approved by the government to regulate the prices of such drugs, and their purchases are made from regional and federal budgets. And patients should receive such drugs free of charge upon prescription from polyclinics and hospitals. In the case of pituitary gland drugs, the regions should purchase them, independently assessing the need and budgeting the corresponding expenditures.
Reports of shortages began as early as the end of 2024, said Ekaterina Andrusova.
- If patients have a favorable prescription, they cannot get the drugs from a pharmacy. Interruptions in drug supply have been observed since November, - said the expert. - They have been occurring annually for the last three to five years.
According to the patient organization, since the end of 2024 - beginning of 2025, people with pituitary pathologies have faced such a problem in at least four regions.
- In Ufa, Kazan, St. Petersburg and Krasnodar. But in Krasnodar Krai, the problem has recently been resolved. For the other three regions it is still relevant, - said Ekaterina Andrusova.
Acromegaly is considered an orphan disease and leads to disability and reduced life expectancy by an average of ten years, endocrinologist Irina Matsueva-Almazova told Izvestia. According to her, at first the disease is treated surgically, but further medication therapy is required.
- Drugs, which patients have problems with, have no analogues and interruption of therapy can lead to serious consequences for patients, - said Irina Matsueva-Almazova.
According to her, interruption in taking medications can lead to cardiovascular pathologies, such as high blood pressure, increased heart volume, and this is fraught with rhythm disturbances, valve pathology and heart failure. Also, the expert added, can develop diabetes mellitus, its complications, respiratory diseases and malignant neoplasms of the gastrointestinal tract and other organs.
Why drugs are not issued
As one of the patients from Bashkiria told Izvestia, she has not been issued a drug with the active substance pegvisomant since November 11, 2024. But, according to her, she is far from the only one in her region who has been left without the drug - people have regularly complained to the prosecutor's office.
The regional prosecutor's office responded to one of the complaints (Izvestiya has it) by saying that they had registered an appeal about "improper provision of discounted medicine." And another response - from the Burzyansky district prosecutor's office - said that they "assigned the Ministry of Health of Bashkiria the obligation to provide the patient with the drug."
"After the entry of the court decision into legal force, the district prosecutor's office received the writ of execution and sent for enforcement to the bailiff service. Under such circumstances, there are no grounds for taking prosecutorial response measures now," the document says.
The patients complained about the interruptions to the Ministry of Health of Bashkiria. In response to their appeal, the agency said that information on the need for drugs is collected annually and updated throughout the year by medical organizations.
"The formation of the need for drugs, medical devices and specialized nutrition is formed in the republic by requesting annually before September 1 of the current year for the next year," the ministry explained. - After the completion of the formation of the need, there are new patients in need of drugs, the scheme of treatment tactics is changed, the dosage of the use of drugs is increased".
The Ministry of Health said that it had passed the minutes of the coordination council on the profile of endocrinology to the regional Logistics Department for the purchase of a drug with the active substance pegvisomant "in order to provide patients in 2025."
"Izvestia" sent requests to the St. Petersburg Health Committee and the Ministry of Health of Tatarstan with a request to explain the reasons for the delays and shortage of drugs, as well as to refine when it is planned to resume their issuance to patients. The editorial board also sent requests to state pharmacies in the regions asking them to tell whether the drugs are in stock, when they were last received and when a new shipment is planned.
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