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Quartering tablets and veterinary medicine for humans – both symptoms of the lack of medicine. Visit to a pharmacy.
Cardboard boxes are everywhere in the basement of Interlaken Hospital. This is a symptom of the lack of medication, says Enea Martinelli. He is chief pharmacist at the Bernese Oberland hospitals in Frutigen, Meiringen and Interlaken.
In addition, Martinelli has been dealing with the drug shortage for 20 years. On the one hand he runs his own website to record deficiencies, on the other hand he is involved in the board of Pharmasuisse, the association of pharmacies.
Getting excited is the order of the day
Here in Interlaken, two people are busy every day looking for replacement products, says Martinelli. One of them is pharmaceutical assistant Marianne Gehrig: “Not a day goes by that I don’t have to get upset. But all we can do is fight and look for alternatives.”
Legend:
A look at the Interlaken hospital pharmacy with the replacement medication.
Enea Martinelli
The pharmacist Sandro Giger is sitting one room down the road. He looks at a patient’s medication schedule. He needs heart medication, but unfortunately it is not available. Therefore, a replacement product is imported from Germany.
But with this, the dosage is four times too high. “We have no other solution than quartering these pills. We do it with one device, but it’s not exactly accurate,” says Giger
Cow labor medicine for women
Head pharmacist Martinelli stops at a shelf and points to various substitute products. “Here we imported fever-reducing syrup for children from England because there was no longer any in Switzerland.” With this preparation you have to add a package leaflet in German. “That’s our responsibility.”
Legend:
For 20 years, Enea Martinelli has been committed to combating the shortage of medicines.
Enea Martinelli
Martinelli tells of absurd situations that arose because of the lack of medication. For example, the cantonal pharmacist of the canton of Vaud had to prescribe labor medicine for cows to a pregnant woman because the drug was not available for humans. It’s the same active ingredient in animals and humans – that’s why it could be done that way.
From task forces and working groups
The pharmacist says that the task force that the federal government set up this winter to combat the shortage of medicines has achieved a lot: “Above all, it has relieved us of administrative work.”
Switzerland will not find solutions on its own.
Thanks to the task force, for example, individual blister packs can now be given to patients, not just entire packs. The federal government is also looking for long-term solutions.
There is also a working group for this. Martinelli is hoping for European cooperation: “Switzerland will not find solutions on its own. We have to work with other European countries.”
Until then, two people will probably continue to look for solutions every day in the Interlaken hospital pharmacy to circumvent the shortage of medicines.