Pharmacy Act to modernise 45-year-old law
(CNS): Parliament is expected to debate a new bill next month to replace the existing outdated legislation relating to pharmacies and the dispensing of medicines that was first enacted in 1979. The Pharmacy Act, 2024 repeals the old law and introduces a new regulatory regime for the importing and making of medicines and the wholesale, dispensing and prescribing of drugs. Attempts to modernise the law have spanned almost 15 years, and it’s not clear what has caused the failure of past efforts.
The new law will create new offences, such as making medicine without a manufacturing licence, selling medicines wholesale without a wholesale licence, and importing, selling, dispensing, prescribing, administering or making non-approved medicines. However, a new provision in the new bill authorises medicines that have not yet been approved for use here in exceptional circumstances or for health emergencies.
It also introduces an official ban on internet and mail-order pharmacies with no physical premises in Cayman.
The issue of prescription medicines, especially opioids, finding their way onto the streets of Cayman — a relatively new phenomenon — has also prompted Chief Medical Officer Dr Nick Gent to seek tighter policies around those types of medications. During a recent radio appearance, he said that he was worried about addiction as the scale of prescribing of those medicines “concerns me an awful lot”, and it was an area that needed extra attention.
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Category: Laws, Medical Health, Politics
Are you prepared for the forthcoming Popcorn Lung / VAPES Heath Crisis?
The insurance companies will not be providing coverage for these ignorant users.
Relax folks…this do nothing Govt is not passing or dealing with any major problem…the dump, Cayamn Water licence renewal, legal practitioners act, minimun wage …the list goes on
You can be assured of one thing, once the government gets involved to “fix it”, it will get worse for everyone.
Separate issue perhaps, but is there any monitoring of prescription drug prices relative to a benchmark?
Like the existing schedule of Standard Health Insurance Fees does for Services.
Could help contain medical inflation, even if it only covered the most heavily prescribed prescription drugs.
Has our CMO ever pondered that some physicians may be over prescribing or even backdoor dealing opioids? But that’s simply not happening is it?
just seem like more red-tape that will increase cost and wait times for customers..
While the red pens are out, let’s take benign natural health food supplements like hemp products off any antique schedule 1 narcotics lists. Hopefully we’ve learned a lot since 1979, and are open to the pantheon of contemporary expert studies and opinion published since.
Exactly, in other jurisdictions including UK CBD preparations are legal, however our boneheaded legislators are stuck in the 1800s.
They don’t understand the difference between CBD and THC.
Cayman is still not able to talk out loud about domestic fentanyl OD deaths. They are here and happening. The Pharmacy Act should loosen any restrictions on the availability of overdose counter-actives like Opvee (nalmefene) nasal spray, and Narcan (nanoxone) and require its availability in EMS vehicles, public mall and nightclub security first responder medical areas, schools, colleges, etc. Have those so-equipped undertake the watching of the 5 minute instructional video.
How about we prevent the drugs, their users, and their dealers from existing here? This is one issue that is 100% imported.
Wrong on all counts, as usual. The reason nothing ever happens in Cayman is that Caymanians are infallible. The blame always seems to rest with someone else, and that reasoning allows the tasked belongers to sit on their tuffets, milking a 6 figure do nothing job, waiting for some other miracle outcome.