Hundreds of drugstores are about to go bankrupt

The implementation of the Automatic Informational System will have a dramatic social impact, which is the reason why it will be insisted on cancellation of the Governmental decision nr. 85 from January 25, 2005. This declaration was made on Saturday, April 27, by the chairman of the Small Business Association (AMB), Eugen Roscovan at a round table, where pharmacists from several localities of the republic, statesmen and representatives of some international organizations participated. According to the quoted source, as a result of implementing the informational system the whole Moldovan population will have to suffer, especially the socially vulnerable categories. “Because of this, the drugs will rise in price irreversibly; some of them already increased from 30 to 100%, in this way the poor persons will not have lame access to medical assistance. The cheap drugs of first necessity started to disappear from the drugstores. Recently in the Ciocana district, a group of poor persons, noticing that the cheap medicaments disappear, entered the drugstore to make a reserve of provisions and broke the door”, added Eugen Roscovan. At the same time, the Government’s Decision has a negative impact on the pharmaceutical industry. The small drugstores will be forced to close their businesses, generating a massive unemployment. According to the chairman of AMB this decision was taken totally not transparently, the civil society was not consulted. “The decision was taken by a group of people that want to accumulate on the back of the drugstores an important capital amounting to minimum 36 million lei. As well, these persons want to take hold of the pharmaceutical market in an aggressive and inhuman way”. The owner of a drugstores network from Ocnita, Vasile Lasai, mentioned at the round table that the Governmental decision has an unofficial character because according to the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova all the official documents are approved by the Parliament. The quoted source said the local authorities from Ocnita solicited the drugstores to stop their activity because they do not correspond to the legal metric area and this happened suddenly, after 13 years of activity. According to Lasai, the Government must be sued because it has no reason to address petitions, they are simply not read. The head of the Rubus-Farm SRL drugstore from Chsinau, Vitale Capcelea, declared that for understanding the new informational programs, time is needed. Also the programs are not yet functioning properly, the smallest mistake blocks it. Because of these conditions the pharmacists have to appeal to specialists that created the program, but every consultation hour they are asked to pay 40 USD. More, the company ONIX GCV that elaborated the programs and offers consultations has only 5-6 specialists and they will not manage to consult all the drugstores if necessary. Vitalie Capcelea said it is not clear how all the collected information will be systematized and if the information will be truthful. According to him, if authorities will continue insisting on draft’s implementation, the pharmacists will address to the international experts to decide whether it is fiar or not. Solicited by Info-Prim Neo, the representative of the Automatic Evidence from the Medicament’s Agency, Ion Munteanu mentioned he is not empowered to present the official opinion of the Agency and came to the meeting only for accumulating information upon the situation. The coordinator of the private sector development project of the World Bank (BM), Victor Burunsus, also said he is not enforced to give information on behalf of the organization he represents, but he promised the WB will present in short time its official position. According to the information of the Small Business Association, several drugstores already implemented the new program, but it does not function properly and creates problems. Hundreds of drugstores from Chisinau are about to go bankrupt, but their number could increase to 10 thousand all over the country. The amount of sales in the drug stores decreased in the last months by 20-30% and even more at some of them. Nearly 16 thousand drugstores are functioning in the Republic of Moldova, of which 2000 in Chisinau.