Marta, Emilia, Ismael or Fabiola, all proper names, names for elderly people, but all have a common problem: lack of medicines in the 92 pharmacies in the province, a problem affecting the entire population without distinguishing ages, sex or other categories.

After a long journey on October 3 to get the Reparto pharmacy, in the capital city, Maricela Fernández returned home with few medicines. Of all the medicines in her acquisition card of controlled medicines , she only found hydrochlorothiazide.

"There is no metformin, glibenclamide or 125 mg aspirin, although I take the largest one - 500 mg - divided into four", says this lady over 60 years.
After suffering a cerebral stroke , Fabiola Quiñones´s husband takes clopidogrel, a platelet antiaggregant that has not been available for months. To get that medicine in this drug store , he says, he had to get up at 4:00 a.m.

"The queues and problems occur because of excess population that attend here. Some even pretend to be physically disabled and, since they do not ask for their identification , they buy from others. "

This 68-year-old woman from Artemisa is right, because 692 pharmacy in Reparto Nuevo popular council , serves more people than the Main pharmacy, said Taimí Pérez, technical director of Pharmacies and Optics Basic Unit Enterprise(UEB) in the capital municipality.

Located in an area of population growth, very close to Tomás Romay Polyclinic and Ciro Redondo Provincial Hospital, it includes 19 medical offices, in several popular councils, said Jenny Herrera, the manager.

"We make about 80 control card daily. We are not enough for so much demand. Xonia Tenreiro, head of the Department of Medicines and Medical Technologies of the Provincial Health Directorate testified about the efforts of the Municipal Administration to build a new pharmacy, Tenreiro also explained the lack of medicines affecting the territory.

"The distribution cycle runs from Monday to Thursday, with a different day for each municipality; depending on what is received and demanded, we make up the general panorama. Between September 24 and 30, there were 88 absences: 21 of imported drugs and 67 of national production, in addition to four laboratory reagents. When we receive a medication that has been missing , it does not remain more than 72 hours in storage. "

"Headaches" in other locations

San Cristobal settlers suffer similar anguish, dispite the municipality has a storehouse that also supplies Candelaria and Bahia Honda townships.

Caridad Piloto, municipal head of medicines, explains that they supply their 23 pharmacies weekly between Monday and Tuesday, except the one located in Modesto Serrano, with monthly frequency.

The locality does not escape the deficit that the country suffers. "There are problems in the stability and delivery of certain products. We do not always receive the totality of the needs . Among the most unstable medicines , there are enalapril, glibenclamide, metformin, sodium valproate tablets, amiodarone and bromocriptine. The orientation for all is to sell the deficit medicines from the received amount: to 50 percent or less ".

At the time of our visit on October 2, the day of commercialization, several hypertensive patients waited for more than an hour in the queue of the main pharmacy, while María Elena Yin satisfied almost all of her orders, except tolnaftate, at La Micro pharmacy in San Cristobal 1 Popular Council . "Here there is a long line when dipyrone, vitamin c in drops and others in high demand are available", Maria added.

Caridad Piloto points out a serious problem: "there are person who stand in queues , and sell shifts in the Main pharmacy and in La Micro area, and even those who buy drugs to resell them , a question that calls for doctors to pay more attention to people recurrent ones requesting prescriptions in their consultations ".

When we searched in Alquízar township , there were 86 medications missing of the 352 included in the basic table. "The most in demand are those controlled, because of their impact on patients with chronic diseases, unable to comply with their treatment. Sometimes we do not receive the total and we can only give one percent each, "says Arlin Langaney, director of Farmacies and Optics UEB in Alquízar.

Langaney talks about the sporadic ruptures in the close relations that must prevail between the doctors and the pharmacy. "Sometimes they prescribe a medication in doses exceeding what is regulated, and the patient sees us as the bad ones. For example, dipyrone must have 20 tablets prescribed , and doctors prescribe 40. The same happens with some antibiotics and acetaminophen, among others. "

The main problems in Alquizar, at least in the urban area, are structural. The Principal pharmacy , located provisionally in the small space occupied by La Comunitaria , does not have a large storehouse, the roof leaks and it is very small for its 22 workers. We have the worst situation in La Comunitaria pharmacy.

Marilay Fernández, the administrator, talks about other visible problems. "We have been in a small room for three years , due to delays in the reconstruction of La Principal. A small reparation was made in 2017. They say that it is expected for 2019, while we dispatch in very bad conditions through a door and a window of small boards ".

In Güira de Melena the highest concentrations occur in the La Principal pharmacy , the days they receive medicines ; however, it highlights the decrease after the implementation of the new mechanism of medical prescriptions by Public Health management.

The head of the Department of Drugs in the Provincial Health Department , talked about the lack of creams such as ketoconazole, clobetasol and gentamicin, due to technological problems in the pharmaceutical industry, and difficulties to get raw materials.

Fernandez pointed out that the province changed medical prescriptions in March, and new stamps according to the care unit, in order to avoid falsification. "There is no prescription limit per patient, the necessary ones will be given according to diagnosis and treatment."

Such a delicate subject requires the attentive look of everyone. Keeping communication with the people in pharmacies, dealing with hoarding and the ones who sell shift in lines in these institutions, and appealing to the humanism that characterizes us, will help to find solutions for such matter.

Medications are not luxury, they are first necessity.

TRANSLATION BY LMMS