Patients in panic, Clinical Center Banja Luka has no cytostatics

The Clinical Center Banja Luka again has no cytostatics, specifically the drug „cytarabine" which is necessary for chemotherapy of lymphoma. Patients say they are outraged and that they have to fend for themselves in various ways to secure therapy, reported BNTV, as carried by the Patria news agency. 

"Cytarabine" is a cytostatic that has been unavailable at the Clinical Center Banja Luka for two weeks. It is necessary for lymphoma therapy, but treatments are not being administered because no one can guarantee when the drug will be procured, says Aleksandra Gordić from the Lymphoma Patients Association of Republika Srpska.

Gordić managed to obtain six vials of the drug needed for tomorrow's therapy, but the question arises of what will happen in the future and how long patients will be forced to fend for themselves.

The Health Insurance Fund of Republika Srpska states that the temporary halt in supply occurred due to current issues the drug manufacturer is having with the re-registration of the company.

They claim that as soon as they learned the drug was missing, they contacted the supplier and received assurance that the drug would be delivered by the end of the week, and that those who purchased it with their own money would have their costs reimbursed.

The supplier, incidentally, is the company "Komedprom", with which the fund signed a contract in 2013 for the supply of "cytarabine".

The story of the shortage of cytostatics keeps repeating itself, even though the Health Insurance Fund, as they themselves confirmed, less than two years ago, specifically in August 2013, told patients not to worry because they had secured cytostatics for the next two years, i.e., until August 2015.