The shortage of medicine in the local market has been affecting Lebanon’s dental clinics, which have been struggling to secure the supplies they need from pharmaceutical warehouses.
Over the past few months, as Lebanon’s economic conditions have continued to deteriorate, and the looming threat of canceling subsidies raised fears regarding the availability of medicine, owners of pharmaceutical warehouses started to reportedly take advantage of the situation.
Aside from putting at risk the lives of terminally-ill people and those who rely on their prescribed drugs to lead proper lives, hiding and monopolizing medicine stocks have been placing enormous pressure on dental clinics.
The monopoly has caused the prices of anesthesia, an unexpendable substance for any dentist, to skyrocket way past the Health Ministry’s limit for these prices, up to five-fold in some instances.
This serious problem recently prompted a complaint to be lodged by dentists to the Health Ministry. However, the complaint has yet to deliver any practical results.
In the meantime, facing the prices that are no longer bearable and the seeming lack of a proper solution in the near future, many dentists in the country have decided to close down their clinics.
Not only that, but a large number of them, including reportedly around 25% of dentists in the north,, have reportedly filed documents to the Lebanese Dental Association in preparation for leaving the country.
