“From diabetics to heart patients: millions of patients will find it easier to get the drug without paperwork”

"After patients with diabetes, we aim to make life easier for those suffering from hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. Our commitment must be to make the drug immediately accessible: a citizen who takes the medicine without impediments and interruptions is better treated and also saves the state coffers". The promise comes from the Undersecretary of Health Marcello Gemmato who tells the Sole 24 Ore about the impact of the decision of the Medicines Agency a few days ago to move some diabetes drugs from "direct distribution" (that in hospital pharmacies) to "distribution on behalf" (in practice in "ordinary" pharmacies) with the abolition of therapeutic plans as well.

A measure wanted by Gemmato himself in the last budget maneuver that is starting to have effects on millions of chronic patients who now have the possibility of having immediate access to a life-saving drug in the pharmacy near their home without being forced to order them and wait even more than a day and above all without having to go to the specialist doctor every year to have the disease certified and replicate the therapeutic plan: "A bureaucratic act made of paperwork that in the end wastes the doctor's time as well as the patient's, also lengthening the waiting lists". After the passage of the first gliptin-based anti-diabetics last year, now it is the turn of glifozines, new generation anti-diabetics also used to lower blood pressure, promote weight loss, prevent hypoglycemic attacks and protect the heart and kidneys. "These simplifications concern almost 3 million patients who will now be able to go to the pharmacy and immediately obtain the drug", reiterates Gemmato. Who looks to the next steps: «We still have to complete the simplifications for diabetics with Glp1 drugs, but then we want to focus on other areas of great chronicity such as hypertension or cardiovascular diseases. Of course, the transition will have to be made always verifying that there are no impacts on the state accounts».

But in the pharmacy the citizen, equipped with the prescription of the SSN, in addition to the medicine, increasingly finds low-complexity tests: «It is the so-called pharmacy of services that has been planned for years, but tested in its capillarity during Covid. The citizen can find the blood pressure Holter, the cardiac Holter, spirometry and electrocardiogram. Today the waiting lists can be reduced also thanks to the pharmacies as is happening in the Marche and Liguria». But with an emphasis by Gemmato: «The pharmacy does not replace the doctor because it will be him remotely who based on the results will make the diagnosis and report just as the more complex tests will remain in the analysis laboratories. Today these new services have already saved in some cases the lives of those who have had a heart attack and found out by going into the nearest pharmacy».