Brodies has gone public in its war with the Ministry of Health - and tonight, the Ministry is snapping back. The Ministry says that after it implemented new regulations requiring labelling only in English or Spanish for all medicines, it identified five pharmaceutical companies out of 37 that were importing products with labels in other languages. Four of those companies discontinued importation of these foreign language medicines, except for Brodies.
The Ministry says that - in spite of the regs - it has still found foreign language medicines on pharmaceutical shelves supplied by Brodies up to May, 2018.
And then in June 2018, Brodies went to the Ministry with a list of over 160 products that did not have the required english-spanish labels. The Ministry says it did not take any action on these because they were already in the country. Then later that month, Brodies requested importation for a shipment of medicines coming from Turkey, with a receipt from a supplier in England. That told the Ministry that it was not coming from England and this shipment was not granted importation approval.
Still, the Ministry says Brodies brought it in - despite warnings that it would not be allowed into the country. Indeed, when the shipment reached, all product labels and patient leaflet information were in Turkish. The Ministry says it met with Brodies to request that the shipment be returned to its supplier. But the supplier could not accept the return even after the products were flagged.
Brodies now says it will have to destroy the ninety thousand dollars worth of medicines - they say to the detriment of persons who need specific medicines.
The Ministry says there is a procedure set in place for patients who wish to import their medication to the country and also for all those patients who bear a rare disease.
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