“In Latvia, the allocated funding for drug compensation is significantly less than in other European Union countries, including Lithuania and Estonia,” says the information message of the Ministry of Health, published on the portal of legal acts. “Due to insufficient funding, residents have large expenses for purchasing medications, so some patients cannot afford the necessary medications. This negatively affects the health outcomes of residents.”
And this despite the fact that from 2018 to 2023, funding for drug programs in the Republic of Latvia increased from 173,775,430 euros to 269,839,859 euros. After all, the price tag is also growing – by 5.3% per year.
The Office of Hossam Abu Meri (“New Unity”) notes that cancer diagnostic tools have finally begun to arrive in the country. “Innovative therapy makes it possible to tailor treatment to each patient individually, taking into account the characteristics of the tumor and the state of health, it is cost-effective and can help significantly delay progression, significantly prolong life expectancy or achieve complete recovery, but at the same time it is a very expensive therapy…”
In Latvia, rare diseases have become more effectively treated – mucopolysaridosis, Dischen’s muscular atrophy, phenylketonuria, and pulmonary hypertension. For most of these diagnoses, previously considered incurable, the number of patients is less than 10 per country.
On the other hand, the most widespread diseases are heart and circulatory diseases – in 2023 there will be 500,306 unique patients (in 2019 – 483,775), endocrine, digestive system and metabolism – 212,486 patients (183,473). The increase in the number of cases is explained both by improved diagnostics and by natural causes: “Like throughout the world, the population in Latvia is aging…”
Thus, in our republic, a situation of polypharmacy is increasingly observed – one patient takes a number of different medications, and for some, “the use of medications is long-term, throughout life.”
To provide new reimbursed medicines, the Ministry of Health requested 14,666,331 euros from the budget for 2024, 21,415,255 euros for 2025, and 23,428,169 euros annually for 2026 and subsequent years. The lists of compensated drugs will include drugs designed to fight breast cancer, lung cancer, melanoma, myeloid leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia in children, as well as patients with depression. In total, 131,408 patients should receive reimbursed medications in Latvia.
In all this, of course, the authorities can only be supported. Only this exact, down to a person, verified number of patients is somehow alarming. After all, we have not yet forgotten the years 2020–2022, and how the healthcare system coped with the coronavirus then…
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2024-05-03 17:08:41