Spanish pharmacists are advising people not to get sick after September due to the ever serious possibility that drug vendors will run out their medicine supply by then. In fact, a few drugs are already scarce in some offices. This is not an empty threat; it is a serious advisory from an industry that is living through hard times caused by cuts in healthcare benefits that governments subsidize.
Next year?s regional government budget kicks in later in 2012, but right now it has run dry. ?We cannot finance eight months? worth of prescription drugs,? said the president of the Regional Council of Pharmaceutical Companies, Rosa López-Torres.
Castilla-La Mancha is not the only region in danger. Pharmacies in Baleares and Castilla-La Mancha have not paid their bills since May. Two months that, with the addition of July, weigh down the smallest companies who have to pay for the costs of medicine one month in advance even though they hardly have any money in the bank. ?Because who has enough cash in the bank to pay 10,000 euros up front each month?? asked Ana Rodríguez, president of a pharmacy business organization in Toledo.
Plunging counter sales at pharmacies are not enough to sustain business in the industry. Without up-to-date subsidy payments from government, the pharmacy network may face store closures. Patient contributions only finance 5.8% of 11.49 billion euros in prescription drug costs, which represent 85% of the average pharmacy?s revenues.
