If you’ve had the problem of vision loss because of retinal disease or macular degeneration and go to one of Atlantic Eye’s four offices in Monmouth County, you have probably met or been treated by Dr. Guerriero.
If that’s so, you already know he is an outstanding eye surgeon, a brilliant physician and a man with deep sensitivity, great concern for others, and a strong desire to always help someone in need.
It’s because of these extraordinary feelings that Dr. Guerriero is also truly depressed, frustrated, and perhaps angry, though he displays none of these emotions, just does his job to the best of his ability. When I once asked him why he chose a field of work that includes sticking needles in peoples’ eyes, he simply smiled and said, “so I can help people.”
This week, I learned this doctor, and tens of thousands like him, are truly frustrated. They can’t always get the precise medications they order in order to cure their patients.
Is it Covid? Is it an inability for pharmaceutical companies to secure supplies? Is it a failure in shipment for whatever reason? Or is it something else.
The doctor said there are medications he has ordered more than a year ago that he has been unable to secure even now. There are medications that are simply not being able to be replaced once his supply runs out. Even samples, little packages pharmaceutical companies give to physicians and surgeons to entice patients to buy them in the future are being cut back, he said. Most physicians use the samples to let patients try a new medicine and save them the cost of filling a prescription before he can find out whether that particular medicine is the most effective for continued use. Even they have been cut back, and pharmaceutical companies aren’t giving so many to doctors’ officers anymore.
The surgeon is worried that some time he may have to tell a patient, “I’m sorry I can’t help you.” Because he knows from his years of experience and his close knowledge of a patient’s problems that one particular medication will help cure his problem. But if he has to wait a year or even months to get it, he knows neither he, nor any other surgeon, can help the patient. Medications, prescriptions are necessary in many cases where changing lifestyle habits, improving food choices or exercises of some kind or other simply won’t do the trick without some help from medication to fight the problem in the first place.
Nobody says why supplies aren’t there, not only in medication but in so many other products and foods as well. Are there not enough freight trains or trucks to transport the necessary products? Have supplies of something be cut for some reason or other? Is it a matter of competition between pharma companies or other manufacturers? Is it because they’re coming from a foreign country.
He doesn’t know. It’s not the foreign country aspect. He can cross that possibility off right away. He is dealing with American companies, American manufacturers, not other countries. He simply doesn’t know what it is but it’s been going on for more than a year. Nor is it a particular pharmaceutical company. They’re all the same, he said, it has nothing to do with competition. Yes, he’ll concede, since the start of the Covid pandemic. Could there be a connection? He just shakes his head sadly.
All of that, and not even addressing the cost aspect of drugs and everything else. Prices have risen drastically in recent months and yes, he could agree, some have always been terribly expensive.
As an example, there is one medication that is highly regarded for stopping the advancement of macular degeneration. For some cases, the medicine can halt it completely, for others, it is able to halt the advance before total blindness occurs. And that takes regularly scheduled visits for eye injections of the medication.
But it can only be administered to the very wealthy, or those with great insurance policies. That drug, for the few drops that are injected into the eye perhaps monthly, costs the patient $5,000. Per shot. It is made in the United States, but it’s cheaper in Canada by a thousand dollars. And even cheaper than that in Europe. But in the country where it is manufactured, that single shot costs $5,000. And that is without including the cost of the excellent pre-care the physician and his staff give even before the injection, to be certain it is needed, it is working, and it is the wrong medication. There is no shortage of that at the present time, the doctor explained. But should it happen, he would try another drug that is available and designed to do the same thing. But will it be as effective? Will it work as well? Will it continue to be available or will he have to find a third, then a fourth type that is on hand.
The doctor simply shakes his head, and you can almost feel the pain he is experiencing with the thought he might not be able to help someone in need.
He doesn’t say it. But you can see the sorrow, pain and frustration in Dr. Guerriero’s eyes when he talks about an inability to help a patient with the best care he knows how to give.
