There is none specification for medicines and their safety control mechanisms in vending machines. The Parliament accepted in the first reading last week the possibility of placing vending machines for the sale of medicines in settlements where there are no pharmacies.
This is what Alexander Simidchiev (PP-DB), deputy chairman of the health commission in the 50th National Assembly, commented to journalists in the parliament, quoted by BTA.
Alexander Simidchiev explained that there are two levels of drug safety control, but vending machines do not allow it to be implemented. Everyone was talking in the hall that it was about non-prescription medication, but this was not specified in the law, he added.
Regarding the shortage of pharmacies in small settlements, Simidchiev recalled that they proposed a solution with a procedure under the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), giving incentives from her side. "We made a procedure by which the treasury evaluates the density of pharmacies, and if it is low, that is, people have difficulty accessing it, additional incentives are created by the NHIF itself,", he explained.
According to him, in small settlements, people who need medicines get them mainly from the health fund.
According to Simidchiev, vending machines cannot solve this problem as they are proposed, and in order to be complete and to be able to prescribe medication at the cash register from vending machines, they must allow a video connection with a pharmacist, and such machines cost a lot money. He added that in this way, the low turnover that will occur in small settlements will not be able to allow them to actually pay off.
There are such devices in the world that are known in telepharmacy, explained Simidchiev and added that they allow a pharmacist with a video connection to exercise this control over the medications that are dispensed. These devices are complex machines, they must contain a certain number of medications and their contents are renewed, Simidchiev also pointed out. According to him, the machines have a limited volume that must be in line with the medications that are expected to be dispensed through that machine.
Last Friday, the Initiative Committee of Master Pharmacists in Bulgaria announced that they consider the automated system for the sale of medicines to be dangerous. The reason for their position is the legislative changes to introduce the automated sale of medicines from the vending machines.