CNAS: There is no cytostatic drug crisis, only production deficiencies affecting certain medicines

The President of the National Health Insurance House (CNAS), Horațiu Moldovan, told Digi24 that the country is not facing a cytostatic drug crisis, but rather certain production difficulties affecting some medicines.

"This is not a cytostatic drug crisis. I spoke with President Vasile Barbu as soon as I found out and looked into the matter. It is not about cytostatics. He flagged an antiemetic medicine that was unavailable from a particular supplier, but there are no shortages. I checked with the Ministry of Health — cytostatic stocks are available and everything is in order," Moldovan explained.

The CNAS official noted that availability issues are generally caused by production-related factors: "There are certainly certain production deficiencies for some medicines. Fifty per cent of medication supply disruptions in the European Union are caused by production difficulties that some suppliers encounter at one point or another." He added that the solution to such situations lies not with CNAS, but with the Ministry of Health, which can resort to emergency imports in specific cases.

Advice for patients

Moldovan advises oncology patients who discover, during treatment, that certain medicines are unavailable to notify CNAS or their county health insurance houses immediately.

"I advise all patients who have such discussions or conversations with healthcare providers to contact us straight away at the National Health Insurance House or at the county health insurance houses and let us know. Because, at least over the past year and four months, there have been no such supply disruptions. We did have a situation lasting a few days towards the end of last year, which we resolved quickly. But today our payments are up to date, especially for these expensive and very expensive medicines, for oncological drugs," said the CNAS President.

He stressed that he cannot personally guarantee what stocks are held in warehouses — this being a matter for the Ministry of Health to verify — but assured the public that payments for oncological and serious-illness medicines are up to date: "There should be no shortages."

Contact numbers for complaints

Patients experiencing difficulties may call 0372.309.132 or 0372.309.182. From 1 September, these numbers will also be available on the eSănătateaMea portal, listed for each health insurance house and for CNAS.

Horațiu Moldovan encourages patients to set up the ROeID application on their mobile phone in advance, as it is required to access the eSănătateaMea portal. This is the application of the Authority for the Digitalisation of Romania, which serves as the digital identity provided by the Government to citizens, designed to verify the real identity of those accessing the portal and to prevent the use of false identities.