KUWAIT CITY (Middle East Eye) – Kuwait is in the midst of a medicine crisis, with dozens of treatments unavailable and other shortages expected to cause a political crisis in the next few days, according to the Kuwaiti al-Qabas newspaper.
The Persian Gulf state’s parliament, the National Assembly, has scheduled a session next Tuesday to discuss the shortage crisis, said al-Qabas.
Kuwaiti MP Jenan Boushehri, who is a doctor, sent a message to parliament in which she confirmed that “despite the assurances by officials in the Ministry of Health that there are sufficient medicines stocks for the community, many types of medicines are not available for dispensing, which puts the public health situation on the brink of collapse”.
In a previous statement, MP Hassan Jawhar confirmed that more than 2,000 types of vital medicines are not available.
Al-Qabas quoted health sector sources as saying: “The shortage of medicines has expanded to include many vital medicines, which are prescribed to a wide category of patients on a daily basis.”
The sources confirmed that the shortage of medicines requires increasing the current budget from $651mn to $814mn to permanently solve the crisis.