Consequences of Collapse: Access to Critical Medicines Is Disappearing in Greece

When a nation goes into economic crisis the paradigm to which its people have become accustomed begins to deteriorate. Access to critical supplies becomes difficult, sometimes immediately. In the case of Greece, which has been dealing with a loss of confidence in its debt instruments and economic policy, the collapse of life as Greeks know it has taken place over the last several years.
While we have been fortunate enough to avoid as severe a calamity here in the United States, many of the forecasts put forth by ourselves and others regarding the effects of an economic collapse are already taking place in Europe, namely Greece. In the midst of the Greek panic in 2010, for example, as Greece’s meltdown was in full swing and the people scrambled to get out of paper currencies, the price of gold, which was trading for around $1100 an ounce in the global commodity exchange marketplace, soared to over $1700 an ounce on the streets of Greece. In recent months, as Greece implements austerity measures and the unemployment rate sky rockets, its people have lost the ability to engage in traditional commerce because, simply put, they have no tangible income or money to do so. As a result, we’ve begun seeing a barter society emerge  all over the country, making it possible for some people to directly exchange labor for consumptive goods and service.



When things get bad – and they will – the most essential items necessary for survival will disappear first. As currencies collapse, financial market destabilize and economies come to a standstill, critical supplies like food and medicine will become difficult to acquire at any price. This is exactly what is now taking place in Greece, where access to life-saving drugs and even common over-the-counter medicines like aspirin is becoming a tragedy where the losses will be measured not in Dollars or Euros, but lives.

For patients and pharmacists in financially stricken Greece, even finding aspirin has turned into a headache.
Mina Mavrou, who runs a pharmacy in a middle-class Athens suburb, spends hours each day pleading with drugmakers, wholesalers and colleagues to hunt down medicines for clients. Life-saving drugs such as Sanofi (SAN)’s blood-thinner Clexane and GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK)’s asthma inhaler Flixotide often appear as lines of crimson data on pharmacists’ computer screens, meaning the products aren’t in stock or that pharmacists can’t order as many units as they need.
“When we see red, we want to cry,” Mavrou said. “The situation is worsening day by day.”
The 12,000 pharmacies that dot almost every street corner in Greek cities are the damaged capillaries of a complex system for getting treatment to patients. The Panhellenic Association of Pharmacists reports shortages of almost half the country’s 500 most-used medicines.
…
“It would be unrealistic to deny that there are many difficulties regarding all public services due to the financial crisis,” Nicolaos Polyzos, secretary general of the Ministry of Health, wrote in a response to McKee’s article posted on the ministry’s website.
The reasons for the shortages are complex. One major cause is the Greek government, which sets prices for medicines. As part of an effort to cut its own costs, Greece has mandated lower drug prices in the past year. That has fed a secondary market, drug manufacturers contend, as wholesalers sell their shipments outside the country at higher prices than they can get within Greece.
Strained government finances only make matters worse. Wholesalers and pharmacists say the system suffers from a lack of liquidity, as public insurers delay payments to pharmacies, which in turn can’t pay suppliers on time.
Source: Bloomberg

This is what happens when a country’s economy falls apart.  In a report from 2010, economist John Williams warned that a hyperinflationary environment in the US would not only cause food disruptions, but also disrupt the regular flow of commerce. And, while Greece may not specifically be experiencing a hyperinflationary environment (yet), an economic collapse resulting from a debt crisis has similar consequences as evidenced above.
But such a thing couldn’t happen in the United States, right? As we approach yet another debt ceiling this month, requiring some $1 trillion dollars just to keep the system from seizing up like an engine that has run out of oil, our elected officials and leading economic decision makers will ensure we avoid such an outcome.
Or will they?
How willing are you to trust the health of your family to the very individuals and corporations who are responsible for causing the crisis in the first place?
Like Greece, we will see a continued deterioration of basic services here at home. We may be able to print trillions upon trillions of dollars, but eventually those dollars will become worthless and no one will accept them as a trusted currency. This means that all of the food we import from other countries, the drugs we buy from pharmaceutical companies, and the oil we buy from the middle east, will become difficult, if not impossible, to acquire.
Now is the time to get prepared. Food, of course, is one of the first essential preparedness items to stockpile. But how many have given thought to life saving medications? If you have someone with a medical condition in your family, how will you gain access to that medicine when it’s no longer available at your local pharmacy. We recommend taking steps immediately to secure at least a 3 – 6 month supply of the drugs you or your family members need to survive (and to consider proper off-grid storage methods for those requiring refrigeration). Additionally, we strongly encourage you to consider adding Antibiotics for SHTF Planning to your stockpiles, because if things get so bad that you are unable to find medicines like penicillin or cipro at a local pharmacy, you can be assured that no one on the street will be willing to sell them – at any price.