XALAPA.
Due to ignorance or omission, officials and workers of the Ministry of Health did not comply or enforce the guidelines on preventive measures, discharge procedures and final destination due to drug expiration in 2019, months after the change of government.
The problems have persisted until May 2022 and the discovery of Insabi about the accumulation of medicines in the warehouse of the Ministry of Health, which is the most serious because they are months away from expiration and there are more than 800 thousand units between drugs for different ills, up to oncology and high-cost medicines.
But due to this carelessness there were also batches of medicines that were thrown away, abandoned in vacant lots and some were even incinerated to erase the control numbers, but they could not manage to disappear them entirely.
An official letter, SESVER/DA/SRM/01504, dated May 13, 2019, already reported the errors they had incurred and intended to compensate them, because the matter was the Procedure for Cancellation and Final Destination of Expired Supplies.
“In follow-up to Circular: 0682 Official Letter No. SESVER/DA/SRM/0892/DCC/097/2019 dated March 27 of the current year and in order to comply with the Guidelines on Preventive Measures, Removal Procedure and Final Destination for Expiration of Medications, Chemical Substances and Healing Material, in the same way, the Law of Acquisitions, Leases, Administration and Disposal of Movable Property of the State of Veracruz of Ignacio De La Llave (art. 95, 104, 105 and 107), Due to the foregoing, it is requested that if you have expired supplies in stock, it is necessary to notify the Department of Quality Control of Supplies, ”says part of the document that was sent to groups.
According to what was explained by sources from the same Ministry of Health, the procedures for the management of medicines are meticulous and the stores and pharmacies must submit reports on the mobility of medical supplies and these must be reported before their expiration; However, this official letter was circulated on the same dates on which it was reported that medicines had been spoiled in the High Specialty Hospital of Veracruz and the loss amounted to more than 4 million pesos.
“APPEARED”
In Veracruz, a batch of medicines appeared half incinerated; the workers of the Ministry of Health assured that they belonged to the High Specialty Hospital of Veracruz; Within the investigations, they found traces of one of the pharmacy workers, since they intended to disappear at any cost to these medicines because they sought to evade the sanctions. The result was that they found all the medicines and started a procedure, but there were no sanctions.
This was not the only case, because on January 30, 2021, expired drugs from the Ministry of Health were located in a vacant lot in the city of Veracruz.
The medications were for treatment of hypertension, antibiotics, urinary tract, pneumonia and respiratory infections. There was trimethoprim with sulfamethoxazole in tablets, Nitazoxanide suspension and prohor.
In addition to epival; brupen, an antibiotic tablet, as well as pravastatin, which is used in cholesterol treatments.
From these findings it was not known again if they had located to which hospital or health center they belonged.