The “Medicine Approach Program” has existed for about 8 years at the Dr. Gustavo Fricke Hospital of the SSVQP. Today, thanks to this strategy, there are 2,200 patients from remote communities in the V region who avoid going to the health facility.
This program is aimed at elderly people, people with reduced mobility and chronic patients. This was specified by María Eugenia Trujillo, pharmaceutical chemist and head of the External Pharmacy of the Attached Specialty Clinic.
“External pharmacy is concerned with preparing medications and sending them to patients at home and patients at CESFAM. Priority is given to patients over 65 years of age, with reduced mobility and who actually have a problem that prevents them from coming here to the hospital to the pharmacy to pick up their medications. From the hospital, the furthest thing you can get is to Puchuncaví and Quintero. We are also in charge of the children’s cystic fibrosis program that goes to Quilpué, Limache, Quillota and Calera, where medications are sent to the children once a month.
Verónica Villarroel is one of the patients who benefited from this program. She lives in Puchuncaví and picks up her arthritis medications once a month at the Puchuncaví House of Culture, where she installs the equipment in the pharmacy grounds of the Dr. Gustavo Fricke hospital. “It’s great, because sometimes you have to pay for tickets just to go get medicine and here it’s easier because it’s close.” She stated.
Carolina Cisternas picks up the remedies for her mother-in-law’s kidney in Puchuncaví, and is grateful for not having to travel to Viña just for it. “Sometimes it’s still complicated to go there, but having them come here is great, because sometimes you don’t have a way to go. “Two years taking remedies that we had to look for there but now they reach us here.”
Another of the users, Kiendall Arce, belongs to the elderly and has been bringing his prostate treatment to where he resides for years. “It’s super good, because we old people, especially, save ourselves from going there. Sometimes we barely walk, there are days when I can’t even walk, so for them to bring him here, very good. But before I retired them there and then they gave me the possibility of moving here.”
