EVZ EDITORIAL: The medicine cartel

EVZ EDITORIAL: The medicine cartel

FLORIAN BICHIR: "It is said that «until you don't hit your head against the upper threshold, you don't see the lower one»".

Or better said, you don't understan a situation until you dont bump right into it. The Minister of Health, Eugen Nicolaescu, said, yeserday, in a press conference, that he saw all the headlines that announced the medicine distributors will stop, from Friday, deliveries to hospitals and said that he recommends a title: "The Ministry of Health doesn't want to raise the medicine prices". Nicolaescu explained that the Ministry of Health is obliged to assure the pacients access to treatment and to mentain or diminish the medicine prices.

At the first sight it's a normal statement, but it hides a lot of strange things on this medicine market. This is the tip of the iceberg, not to say that we are dealing with a genuine mafia. I needed a medicine - Hidrocortizon for my son. Obiously, being very cheap, it is not produced anymore in Romania, and the medicine firms refuse to import it. Why? Because it's not profitable, it was explained to me. Cinicaly, when we are talking about people's lives. They say it's not profitable. Now he needs Gaviscon Infant, kind of a Smecta for children. A gastric dressing, again very cheap. And that it isn't found in Romania, also. We don't make it, the firms don't import it. Thank God I have a few friends that go abroad from time to time and they help me. But what about the poor people that have nobody? Well, it's simple, they will die because the medicine importrs want to make money. The medicine cartel is very organised. And they have men everywhere.

For example. Constantin Dabelea is a doctor at "Sf. Ioan" Hospital. He has, together with his wife Haritina Dabelea (doctor at the Emergency Hospital from Bucharest), the following companies: Rombiomedica, Biosintex, Medisens, Surgeysmart, that receive, every year, contracts of tens of billions of old lei from different hospitals in the country. Vodislav Dana Maria (head of the Ophthalmology Section at Gorj Hospital) is Haritina Dabelea's sister. Together with her husband, Vodislav Spiridon (surgean at the Ilfov County Hospital), has the firms Examed (that has debts to the state), Multimed, Optstar, Medicaltehnic and Vodimedicor. The last company, together with Vodislav Spiridon, is under DNA investigation in the "Sterilet" file. Then, Vodislav imported sterilets trough the firm Multimed with 200 millions and sold them to Examed for 30 times this price, and then transfered them to Vodimedicor, from where he sold them to the Ministry of Health for 7.4 billions old lei. Yes, you read it well! Thirty times more. That is what you call a deal.

Is it worth mixing up with indispensable medicines, that cost as much as an aspirin? Well, no. This is the reality. In the end, the one that payed is stupid, and the free market says that you can sell at any price.I don't say it's a crime, but it's imoral when other medicines are not brought in the name of profitability. Well, a man's life doesn't count? Can it be quantified in terms of medicine money?