COST-CUTTING IN SPANISH HEALTH CARE

Spain's national health service, INSALUD, has started to package certain drugs for use in its own hospitals as a way of curbing drug spending, reports the national daily El Pais. The scheme is at the experimental stage, and is being carried out at sites including the Santander hospital of Valdecilla.

The drugs being packaged for the service's exclusive use are clindamycin, ciprofloxacin, metronidazole, amoxicillin and vancomycin. Other reports add that zidovudine and ranitidine are also included. Raw materials are being sourced through laboratories in the Netherlands and Germany.

Spain's annual health budget is now about 3 billion pesetas ($21.6 million), with annual growth of 10% in the late 1980s. Health spending has come under close examination and all budgets have been trimmed, but drugs have suffered the most.