The Min­istry of Health, the Med­ical Board of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Phar­ma­cy Board, and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce have agreed to a 30-day col­lab­o­ra­tive plan to re­solve con­cerns over the dis­tri­b­u­tion of spe­cial­ty drugs di­rect­ly to pa­tients.

The agree­ment fol­lowed a high-lev­el meet­ing con­vened on Ju­ly 10 by Min­is­ter of Health Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, in re­sponse to the re­cent is­suance of cease-and-de­sist let­ters to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal whole­salers and dis­trib­u­tors.

The let­ters had raised alarm among pa­tients who re­ly on di­rect ac­cess to crit­i­cal med­ica­tions used to treat can­cer, gas­troin­testi­nal dis­or­ders, and oth­er com­plex con­di­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to a joint stake­hold­er state­ment, the im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ty is to pre­vent any dis­rup­tion in pa­tient ac­cess while reg­u­lar­is­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of these drugs in line with the law.

As a first step, the Phar­ma­cy Board will con­duct a na­tion­al as­sess­ment of phar­ma­cies to de­ter­mine their readi­ness to dis­pense spe­cial­ty med­ica­tions.

At the same time, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­trib­u­tors will re­port on the chal­lenges they face in sup­ply­ing these med­ica­tions to phar­ma­cies.

Once both as­sess­ments are com­plet­ed, a fol­low-up meet­ing will be held to chart the next phase of ac­tion.

The process aims to en­sure that any ad­just­ments to the cur­rent mod­el com­ply with ex­ist­ing laws while safe­guard­ing pa­tient care.

“All par­ties reaf­firmed their shared com­mit­ment to up­hold­ing the in­tegri­ty of the health­care sys­tem while plac­ing pa­tient wel­fare and com­pli­ance with the law at the cen­tre of any tran­si­tion,” the state­ment said.