Pharmacy – illustrative photo.
Prague – Pharmacies are to be threatened with a fine of 20 million crowns, i.e. ten times the current maximum penalty, and even a ban on activity for not registering medicines in the register. The proposal for an amendment to prevent the re-export of medicines was approved by the government today. After the cabinet meeting, Minister of Health Vlastimil Válek (TOP 09) informed about this. The state has been struggling with a shortage of some medicines in recent months, and the minister recently did not rule out that the situation will worsen again in the fall.
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Today, Válek stated that most pharmacies are not affected by the problem of re-export of medicines, “systematic failure to enter medicines into the records associated with their disappearance does happen and is an illegal activity”. With another amendment being prepared for June, his office plans to mandate the mandatory storage of medicines. They are talking about a period of two months.
Together with the national amendment, the cabinet today also approved the norm on medical devices, which is based on the EU directive, the aim of which is to improve coordination and make the availability of medical devices more efficient at the European level. Both proposals will now be considered by the Chamber of Deputies.
While the State Institute for Drug Control can now impose a penalty of up to 20 million for the illegal export of a registered drug, a maximum of 2 million for failure to register it. “In this way, it will pay off for the offenders not to enter the drugs into the records in quotation marks, as they risk a tenfold lower fine,” said Válek earlier in the House of Representatives.
In early May, Válek also stated that within six weeks he would submit an amendment for expert discussion, which would redefine drug categories. In each of them there would be a fully covered medicine. Currently, according to him, this is not the case, for example, patients cannot purchase a fully paid cough or cold medicine. According to Válk, the categories should change by the end of the year.
Next year, the minister plans to open the law on health insurance companies and the law on health insurance, in which he wants to fix a much greater responsibility of insurance companies, so that the patient who is with them insured, provided care.
