Urgent law needed to settle pharmaceutical debts and ensure medicine supply

Representatives from various patient and family organizations have appealed to the Senate's Public Health and Social Security Commission to accelerate a proposed law that would enable debt payments to pharmaceutical companies. They claim that a scarcity of essential medicines has already resulted in patient fatalities.

The Paraguayan state currently owes approximately $1.4 billion to pharmaceutical firms. The industry is seeking to recover this amount through a legislative measure that would lift restrictions under "subgroup 350," which limits payments from the Ministry of Public Health solely to medication expenses.

Noelia Cabrera, president of the Senate's Public Health and Social Security Commission, stated she would support the project and conduct a technical analysis. The deputy minister of Economy, Gerardo Alfredo Ruiz Díaz Franco, has also recommended modifications.

Patient associations presented their case to the commission, urging a prompt review of the bill. However, they expressed frustration that commission members were not present and they were only received by the commission's director and an advisor. "But you also did not comply, just as you did not comply with making that law and passing the adjustment to the law, because you said that eight days after Easter we would have that law in our hands, meaning we would have another meeting and not the presentation of the project that was going to be discussed," one representative stated.

Carlos Zelaya, director of the commission, asserted that they had facilitated meetings between executive branch representatives and pharmaceutical companies to find a solution. He also mentioned a new bill, proposed at the request of a senator, that focuses exclusively on medicines. This proposal aims to allow direct acquisition of essential medicines, bypassing lengthy public tender processes, to address the immediate needs of patients.

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But you also did not comply, just as you did not comply with making that law and passing the adjustment to the law, because you said that eight days after Easter we would have that law in our hands, meaning we would have another meeting and not the presentation of the project that was going to be discussed.