Filenews 18 October 2022 - by Marilena Panayi
Yesterday's wide-ranging meeting on innovative medicines and their inclusion in the General Health System did not come to any conclusion on the substance, since the disagreements recorded between the Ministry of Health, the HIO and organized patients, led to the scheduling of a new meeting that will take place in fifteen days.
In the meantime, as agreed after taking into account the disagreements, the Health Insurance Agency and Pharmaceutical Services will proceed with the compilation of three different lists of treatments. The first list will concern the medicines that the HIO estimates will be included in the GHS in 2022, the second the drugs that are estimated to be included in the System by June 2023 and the third the treatments that will remain with the Ministry of Health and will be administered to patients through the procedures of the Nominal Requests Committee. At the same time and after much discussion, it was agreed that the framework on which these treatments will end up with patients will be defined.
During the meeting, which was probably held in high tones, the Director General of the Ministry of Health, Christina Giannaki, submitted a note containing what the Health Insurance Organization should have done so far but has not yet achieved its goal. In fact, in her note, Mrs. Yiannaki also cites a letter she received, as she claims, from the deputy director of the HIO urging her to limit the approvals of patient requests by the Nominal Requests Committee.
Christina Giannaki's report was naturally answered by the HIO, explaining that the restriction requested concerned specific categories of medicines and not all innovative treatments that have not yet been included in the GHS.
At the same time, the HIO, in order to justify its actions so far, invoked the budget of the GHS, but so did the Ministry of Health, which pays for the treatments purchased through the EDA. It is worth noting that the two sides still have outstanding issues regarding the funds spent on the purchase of medicines on behalf of GHS beneficiaries by the Ministry's Purchasing and Procurement Directorate for the current year.
For 2023, as it has already become known, both the Ministry of Health and the HIO have included in their budgets funds to cover the treatments currently offered through the EDA, but also the treatments that are expected to be included in the GHS in that year.
"What we are interested in is for patients to ensure immediate access to the treatments they need, when they need them, through transparent procedures," said the president of the organized patients, Marios Kouloumas, in a rather intense tone.
Right now, he said, "efforts are being made by the health ministry to resolve this issue and we welcome that effort. Consultations are ongoing and we expect that on the basis of what has been agreed, timelines will be set for the inclusion of medicines in the GHS and then the framework will be defined on the basis of which the patient will ensure access to the treatments he needs."
As the Cyprus Federation of Patients' Associations, he said, "we submitted a specific proposal that would regulate the procedures but this proposal was not accepted by the HIO, so we agreed that we will wait for the HIO and the Ministry of Health to complete within a fortnight the consultation between them and the compilation of three lists of treatments and after being informed accordingly".
For the organized movement of patients, Mr. Kouloumas concluded, "the important thing is that all patients have the treatments they need. This is our request and this is what we will claim since we are committed to serving the Cypriot patient and claiming on his behalf what he needs. Unfortunately, on the subject of innovative therapies, while we have introduced it into the dialogue for exactly one year, we see that we have not yet come up with anywhere, which worries us."
