Hospital pharmacy turns away patient repeatedly for lack of medicines

A 30-year-old woman has related to Gulf News how she has been turned away repeatedly from a hospital pharmacy because it is not stocked with the medicine she has normally been prescribed.

Hospital officials contended this might only have been a temporary situation owing to lower inventory levels towards year-end.

Speaking to Gulf News, the UAE national, however, said it has happened several times over the last few months. She has suffered a recurrent infection, for which she must take a specific drug along with vitamins and dermatology treatments. "But whenever I take the prescription to the hospital, the pharmacists tell me to buy the medicine myself as they are short of this drug," she said.

"I have a health card, which means I am entitled to medical treatment from the government. So how can they just send me away? They don't even give us the alternatives."

She added that the same thing had happened to other people she knows. "My friend's mother has also been sent away from this hospital's pharmacy," she said.

But Dr Ahmed Al Hashimi, director of the Dubai Medical District, said that there is no shortage of medicines in any of the hospitals of the Ministry of Health.

"The ministry's budget for medicine is about Dh300-Dh400 million, and I have not heard about any shortage of medicines in any of the hospitals of the ministry," he said. Dr Al Hashimi added that there are alternatives for most medicines, which are kept as back-up in case of a shortage.

"Even when there is a shortage, it won't be for too long as the ministry's stores are frequently replenished by its suppliers," he said.

Dr Al Hashimi pointed out that the ministry does not only get its required medicines from Julphar, a major pharmaceutical company in the UAE, but also import them from abroad.

"Sometimes, there might be a delay in getting the medicines from abroad for various reasons. People should take this point into consideration," he said.

Dr Al Hashimi added that if patients feel they have been treated unfairly by a hospital, they can file a complaint with the ministry, which will investigate.