As we've been reporting for the last many months, there's a new strict regime governing importation of pharmaceuticals. And, because of that, many drugs that used to be available cannot be sourced anymore with the required paperwork - even though the drugs are legit.
That's what one of our colleagues found with his blood pressure medicine of choice, Labetalol.
George Tillett - who has high blood pressure - took to Facebook to, quote, "express…serious concern because for the first time I can't get my medication I have been using all these years for over a month now and the substitute medication is not working properly." End quote.
Not a nice situation to be in for a hypertensive - so, we checked with the Ministry of Health and they confirmed that Labetalol - which is called a "beta blocker" - is not being allowed to come into the country anymore because the supplier could not get all the required documents.
So, what can patients like Tillett do? Well, he would have to ask an importer to bring it in as a special order - which would be classified as an import under another category and it would be allowed to enter just for that purpose.
For that, he would have to get a prescription from a doctor and an invoice from the supplier, and then send that to Belmopan for approval…a process so tedious that even if you didn't have high blood pressure, before, by the time all that's over, you would surely need a double dose!
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