Although the Government of López Obrador launched from the beginning a crusade against the large companies that sell medicines due to the shadow of alleged corruption, the alternatives of this Administration to buy millions of drugs without intermediaries do not show results either. Postponed or deserted tenders, private negotiations and direct awards have been constant. Entities such as the state oil company, Pemex, the Secretary of Defense (Sedena) and the Government of the State of Mexico have ended up buying their drugs separately and, starting this year, the federal government has again allowed the participation of distributors in large tenders for medicines and healing materials. Meanwhile, patients in public health centers are left waiting for medicines due to intermittent shortages.
The most recent sample button, the first mega-purchase of medicines of the year, whose decision was scheduled for last Friday, was postponed for this week after the need for an exhaustive analysis of the proposals for the 639 codes to be tendered, as well as the repeated ones complaints from pharmacists that the Compranet page through which they would participate presented technical errors.
In this international tender, the Government intends to acquire the medicines and healing parts that will be used during the next two years by nine central Administration units. Among the buyers are the Institute of Health for Well-being (Insabi), the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS); the Institute of Security and Social Services for State Workers (ISSSTE); the Secretariats of the Navy, National Defense, and Health; the National Guard, High Specialty Hospitals, among others. According to the act of opening proposals, 173 companies participated seeking to be suppliers. The tender, which includes the purchase of a minimum of 280 million pieces and a maximum of 700 million pieces, ranges from generics such as paracetamol and nicotine patches to surgical materials.
In the trenches, inside the hospitals, medical personnel are still waiting for supplies to be able to care for the sick. “At a general level, there is a lack of medicines and this further increases the hospitalization time of patients, it is no secret to anyone that the public health system is overloaded with patients, sometimes there is a lack of analgesics, broad-spectrum antibiotics or insulins” , says a health sector worker, who prefers not to give his name to avoid reprisals. The nurse, with more than a decade of experience in a public hospital in the State of Mexico, indicated that although the lack of drugs has been a latent problem since the last Administration, it has now worsened with the pandemic. In his experience, he specifies, of the basic list of medicines that a hospital must have, there is a shortage of 8% to 20%
Since this government began, one of its main battles has been against alleged acts of corruption in the purchase of medicines. In 2019, the Executive vetoed a dozen pharmaceutical marketers because, in the judgment of the federal Administration, they took most of the business and later implemented its own logistics scheme for the acquisition and distribution of drugs. For the purchase, he used the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), while for the distribution of medicines, the creation of a state company was announced through Biological and Reactive Laboratories of Mexico (Birmex).
However, last October, the Government terminated the contract with UNOPS early, although the original agreement expired until 2024, and it was also announced that Insabi would deliver the drugs directly to hospitals without going through the hospitals to shorten times. “We are working on improving the distribution so that they reach the patient. We need medicines not to remain in warehouses and in the hands of those who do not require it,” declared the general director of Insabi, Juan Antonio Ferrer, at that time.
Now, the pharmaceutical union celebrates that the recent tenders contemplate marketers again. Juan de Villafranca, executive president of the Mexican Association of Pharmaceutical Laboratories (Amelaf), indicated that the shift to incorporate distributors gives them more certainty. “We are optimistic, we want it to be a transparent tender and to cover the greatest number of keys possible. Now at least there is a dialogue and we feel that this bidding is done much better, much more effective. In the past, more than the shortage, UNOPS tenders covered 30% of the demand and it was a model that did not work in Mexico and this model that Insabi is doing is much better, it is more transparent and helps to cover the shortage” , indicates.
Last year there were repeated complaints of shortages of cancer drugs, antiretrovirals for patients with HIV or other drugs such as ketorolac, injectable diclofenac, ampicillin or captopril. In the last stretch of his government, the president still has to guarantee the supply of medicines in all corners of the country. Although Insabi boasts results with an investment of more than 100,000 million pesos to guarantee the supply of medicines and the pharmaceutical sector is optimistic with the latest actions of the federal Administration, it will be the patients who verify if their treatments are a reality or one more promise
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