The number of out-of-stock medicines at Mater Dei Hospital fell to 32 this month from 204 in August 2013, the Secretariat for Health said.

There are also only four unavailable medicines through the Pharmacy of Your Choice Scheme, POYC, from the 105 that were not in stock in December 2012.

One of the foremost priorities of the government was to “earnestly attend to medicine shortages both at POYC and in the health entities,” the secretariat said in a statement.

It was reacting to a Times of Malta report on a European study which highlighted Malta as the country worst hit by medicine shortages on a daily basis, based on a survey carried out earlier this year.

Published by the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP), the study found that 72.7 per cent of hospital pharmacists in Malta experienced a shortage of a medicine every day and they described shortages as typically lasting for “weeks”.

However, the secretariat said it had implemented a sequence of “innovative mechanisms” to address issues related to out-of-stock medicines, focusing on those most commonly used.

This process showed that 20 per cent of POYC medicines were used by 80 per cent of 124,000 patients and it helped identify the 64 medicines mostly in use. These items were now closely monitored by POYC and the Central Procurement and Supplies Unit to avoid shortages.

It pointed out that the study quoted figures from March.

“This depicts the marked improvement that has characterised the past months.”

The secretariat said the government was committed to equipping the unit with all the essential resources to address shortages.

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