The Minister of Health, Verónica Espinosa, did not rule out an amendment to the agreement in effect since August 4th, authorizing the purchase of medications outside the basic plan for patients with chronic, terminal, or rare diseases, following the remedies suggested by patients, medical unions, and assembly members.
The health official indicated that the agency is “open to dialogue and improving the wording” of the agreement. “We have heard the legitimate concerns presented by medical school representatives and we are fully open to engaging in dialogue to listen to these concerns, process them, and work together,” she stated.
According to a release issued by the Ministry, the agreement includes a chapter on “medical purchases of medications outside the national plan with no waiting list in emergency cases, with the authorization of the health facility itself and subsequent justification to the Ministry.”
It also specifies that the new legislation “allows for medication requests outside the national plan to be grouped together, so that authorizations can be extended to other similar cases in all health care facilities based on one study (not authorizing each patient, but rather the medication itself for that indication, for all patients who require it); two assessment periods a year are provided for that purpose.”
The restriction of the assessment periods aroused criticism. Opposition party assembly member Poly Ugarte (PSC) stated that the agreement “conditions the way medications can be acquired, given that the months to present applications are February or August and medications can only be requested during other months on an emergency basis.” She also pointed out that patients must wait 120 days for their applications to be approved before they are able to acquire the medications and that up to a year can pass before the patient receives the drug.