PETALING JAYA: The last thing pensioner Amar Tan needed was to drive around Shah Alam looking for a pharmacy that would sell him the prescribed supplement for his knee condition.

Tan, 66, said that in recent months, he had been unable to obtain the free supply of glucosamine from a pharmacy at the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC).

He called Oratis Services Sdn Bhd, a company appointed by the Public Services Department (PSD) to supply drugs not in public hospitals’ formulary list (standard list), to ask where he could get the supplement but his calls went unanswered.
Tan, who comes from Subang Jaya, then drove to a few pharmacies in Shah Alam looking for the supplement but they did not have it.

“We are pensioners, and not many of us are in conditions healthy enough to travel far,” he said.

Non-formulary medications were usually newer drugs or more expensive and prescribed by doctors in teaching hospitals.

Tan said he finally found one place that did stock up the supplement but he had to wait for five days before he could get it.

He said he had been taking glucosamine for over three years to manage the pain in his knee after he declined an offer by the hospital to carry out a RM16,000 knee replacement surgery.

Another pensioner, Lim Ah Tee, 74, said that when he called Oratis Services to ask where he could get his medication for lowering blood platelet count, they said they did not have it in stock.

“Although my condition is not life-threatening, my doctor has advised me to take the medicine at regular intervals.

“Having to go through this hassle to get my medicine is not good for my health,” he said.

The Malaysian Government Pensioners Association president Tan Sri Wan Mahmood Pawan Teh, however, said they had not received any formal complaints from its members and urged those facing such problems to report to the association directly. The association represents 45,000 of the 600,000 government pensioners in the country.

Fomca secretary-general Datuk Paul Selvaraj urged the Government to look into the matter urgently so as not to burden senior citizens.

Malaysian Medical Association president Datuk Dr N.K.S. Tharma¬seelan asked why a third party had to dispense the medication.

“Prices go up whenever third parties are involved,” he said

source:The Star