The Medical Benefits Scheme spends over $40-million annually to purchase medications mainly to treat Non-communicable diseases (NCD’s) and for sending patients overseas for medical care that is not available locally.
The disclosure comes from Health Minister, Sir Molwyn Joseph on Thursday as he addressed a ceremony marking the formal opening of a new satellite pharmacy for MBS at the Villa Polyclinic.
According to the minister, the MBS participates in the OECS Drug Procurement programme and it is the leading entity within that organization by meeting all its obligations. Through the programme, he revealed that MBS spends over $25 million annually to procure drugs through the programme. Most of the drugs go to treat NCD’s which he described as a major problem facing the country’s healthcare system. Another $15 million is spent on sending patients overseas for specialized medical care not available in Antigua and Barbuda.
Sir Molwyn wants to see a concerted effort made to reduce the number of NCD’s noting that its costs are counted not just in dollars and cents, but in the rate of deaths in the country.
“The number of cases of NCD’s in the country will continue to go up if we do not evolve with the management of these diseases. I want to introduce my ideas on how to arrest the rate of NCD’s in the country; I call it traveling on parallel tracks. We cannot find ourselves in a cycle where we are always treating diseases and not investing in preventing diseases. If we do not get on that track and take seriously the potential for us to reduce dramatically NCD’s by promoting, encouraging and institutionalizing the importance of preventing diseases we are not going to win this battle,” he cautioned.
Chairman of the MBS Board, Sir Lionel Max Hurst, commended the decision to establish the pharmacy at the polyclinic as it brings all the services together under one roof, thus making it much more convenient for patients accessing service at the health facility, that now includes a pharmacy.
Head of MBS Pharmaceutical Services, Dr. Andre Bovell took the view that this was an opportune time to open the pharmacy at the polyclinic given the country’s evolving health landscape.
“A landscape affected by both the demographic shift and epidemiologic transition, a landscape where care is now targeted to an ageing population and a burgeoning NCD’s problem, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases to name a few,” he noted.
The ceremony culminated with a ribbon cutting featuring Sir Molwyn, Sir Lionel, PS for Health Stacy Gregg-Paige and MBS CEO, Kevin Silston.
