Turkey's new SUT draft will impede diabetic patients' access to new-generation medicines, says AiFD

Turkey's new procedure regarding new-generation diabetes medications introduced in the draft Health-Care Implementation Notification (SUT) 2010, announced by the Social Security Institution (SGK), has sparked reaction from patients and health care professionals. The Notification restricts prescribing authority of new-generation diabetes medications to endocrinologists, preventing internists from prescribing these medicines.

45 provinces are without an endocrinologist

This restriction is expected to cause serious difficulties of access to medicines, particularly for diabetics and their relatives, who live in provinces where an endocrinologist is unavailable. Currently, endocrinologist posts are vacant in state hospitals in 45 provinces across Turkey, meaning that diabetics and their relatives will have to travel to other provinces, many kilometers away to find an endocrinologist. Otherwise, they will not have access to new-generation diabetes medicines. In other words, if the Draft is adopted in its current form, millions of patients living in provinces without an endocrinologist are expected to be adversely affected, points out the research-based pharmaceutical trade group AiFD.