"Any type of medication (unused and expire) will be welcome," says the Cáritas Madrid website about the drug collection campaign to send to Venezuela. Guided by their good conscience , parishioners of the parishes of the arciprestazgos of Virgen de la Paloma and San Pedro el Real, and San Ginés and San Jerónimo el Real - from the Cáritas Vicaría III area - have been filling medicine boxes until the last December 1 without knowing that the Spanish legislation - the Drug Guarantees Law - expressly prohibits it. In addition, the World Health Organization (WHO) excludes from its guidelines the donation of drugs that have left the legal circuit, such as those brought from homes.

The Ministry of Health has recognized this to this newspaper: «Donations of medicines in no case can come from medicines returned by patients, even if they are unused. These medicines do not offer any guarantee as regards conservation and, in addition, they could include psychotropic medications, which would require special permits for export. In addition, among other requirements indicated by the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (Aemps), it appears that the period of validity of the drugs that are donated must be greater than 15 months.

Moisés is the pastor in charge of organizing this campaign to send drugs to Venezuela from Madrid, the second one he carries out this year: «We send the drugs through a private company that takes them in three days to two parishes in Caracas, because NGOs have problems in customs . There are doctors who do the preselection, ”he says, not wanting to give further explanations. And he adds: «This is organized by Cáritas Parroquial. The data is public, we don't hide anything and we don't want publicity ».

However, from Cáritas Madrid they are unmarked of the initiative , and they affirm that they do not organize it, but that they help to spread it and it is a proposal of a priest in which Caritas volunteers collaborate. In addition, they maintain that international cooperation is directly managed by Cáritas España.

Undeclared drugs

This way of sending means that the medicines are not declared, lacking the permission of the Aemps: «It is black market. What is usually done is to mix them with clothes and food. The medications are not put in the same box, and that is why it reaches the recipient. But sometimes the government also seizes them, ”explains Ruth Parra, project director of the Drug Bank of Pharmacists Without Borders, an NGO that, with its 30-year history, no longer ships to Venezuela .

In turn, Farmamundi, which has been operating since 1991 and has its own warehouse in Paterna (Valencia), explains that they have made shipments to Venezuela in a very exceptional way. Its president, Joan Peris, comments that «in no case the drugs that have left the pharmaceutical channel should be used for humanitarian work» .

The Ministry of Health, for its part, prefers not to rule on the possible sanctioning file because it does not know exactly the conduct.

It is black market. What is usually done is to mix them with clothes and food. But sometimes the government also seizes them.

From Cáritas Spain, with about 70 diocesan Caritas and 7,000 Parish Caritas, they explain that they never carry out campaigns to collect medicines in kind, except in exceptional cases. And they date back to an initiative about 20 years ago for Rwanda, when there was a demand for specific drugs. "Our working model is always with the local Caritas of the country and with economic support from Spain, " they say. And they set an example of an emergency that happened two years ago in the Philippines because of Typhoon Hayan, when an economic contribution was made to the Caritas Philippines call.

Adjusting to the requirements is important so that the remedy is not worse than the disease, never better said. Thus, situations such as the Kosovo refugee crisis in 1999 can be avoided, when 50% of the medicines that arrived in Albania had to be eliminated because they were inappropriate or useless.

Luis González Díez, president of the COF of Madrid, is unaware of the initiative of these parishes in Madrid and explains that they carry out campaigns with Farmamundi and Pharmaceuticals Without Borders. In fact, the latter are participating in a regulated manner with Caritas Toledo to send medicines to Syria.

These initiatives do not arise only in the ecclesiastical field. The NGO SOS Refugiados Ibiza and Formentera, which belongs to SOS Refugiados Spain, has been requesting antibiotics and other drugs to send to refugee camps in Athens, along with food and clothing. Its coordinator, Mateo, clarifies that these are specific medicines, are over-the-counter and are only collected in pharmacies and hospitals. However, a doctor who collaborates with them explains that they collect non-expired medications that the population has in their homes.

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