Lost and found: Multiple Sclerosis drug

Last month it was an X-Ray; "misplaced", this month it was a drug that provides a lifeline for 91 Multiple Sclerosis patients.

When a patient turned up at the hospital pharmacy to pick up her weekly dose of Avonex on Monday, she was shocked to be told that it was "out of stock".

Claire (not her real name) needed to take the injection immediately or face a relapse, which would bring back common symptoms of MS, a chronic disease that leads the body's immune system to attack and destroy the central nervous system's nerve fibres. The symptoms in this case could have included anything from double or blurred vision, temporary blindness, fatigue and pain to 91 patients who make use of the drug.

"I was due to take it on Monday evening and if I miss a dose, or take it late, I risk a relapse... My doctor had told me to take it on the same day, possibly at the same time," she said.

She protested, in full knowledge that the drug was not available in private pharmacies and, even if it were, it would come with a very hefty price tag, running into thousands of euros a year.

In the end, the people manning the pharmacy at Mater Dei Hospital found her a vial in Gozo, which arrived the next day, causing Clare to take her dose late, although she was grateful to have it at all.

When The Times asked about the matter it transpired that the medication was not out of stock at all; it had just been misplaced. "It was in one room rather than another and the pharmacists thought it was out of stock," a spokesman for the Health Parliamentary Secretariat said.

The case is similar to one last month when an elderly woman was told an X-ray she had taken had been lost. The scan surfaced after The Times asked questions, with the health authorities saying the X-ray had been archived before a report was written up.

cbusuttil@timesofmalta.com