Just two months following starting this 2023, finally, This morning the oncological drugs arrived at the Alto Costo pharmacy of the Venezuelan Institute of Social Security (IVSS), in Maracaibo. However, patients reported the poor care they received.
With tiredness and discomfortmore than 300 people had to wait “standing and in full sun” that the supplies were delivered and some had to leave empty-handed following learning that a long list of medicines had not arrived.
In a telephone conversation with Final version, the representative of Committee of Cancer Patients of Zulia, Jessica Valero, notified that “from 2:00 in the morning the patients begin to queue in the facilities and those who arrive following 8:00 in the morning leave at 3:00 pm”.
He added that the state of the pharmacy has been the reason for many complaints, due to their poor organization, care and empathy with cancer patients who attend because they cannot afford the medicines.
The attention is very bad, there are no bathrooms, the director and the doctor treat the patients badly, that pharmacy has many complaints,” said Valero.
Likewise, the most requested treatments and, therefore, the most “difficult to obtain” described by the representative, which are for the breast and uterine cancer, which they have to wait 21 days for possibly to arrive and be dispatched.
“Cancer does not wait, cancer patients cannot wait that long to receive their treatments, They are running a risk,” he said.
The members and the president of the Zulia Cancer Patients Committee, Ángel Urdaneta, made a call to the Single Health Authority, José Miguel Medina, to provide their support, supply the medicines and improve the facilities of the Alto Costo pharmacy for the benefit of those suffering from cancer.
