Asthmatist Hanna: "I can end up in the emergency"

Hanna Nielsen picks up a pink and a black and white bag from her bag and presents them on her white desk. She opens the zippers on both and picks up all the asthma medications she has to take every day - a total of eleven.

Because Hanna Nielsen takes so many different medicines it often happens that they are not in stock when she goes to the pharmacy.

- There is always some medicine that needs to be ordered and then I have to wait one or more days. It is difficult and stressful that they are not in stock, she says.

Hanna Nielsen has on several occasions needed emergency medical treatment because of her asthma. When she has seizures it sometimes happens that she needs to use adrenaline syringes and then it can be about life or death.

Last summer, the syringes ran out in the entire Stockholm area. Then they were listed, which means that the medicine has run out of the manufacturer.

- I don't know how many pharmacies I and my mom and dad went to to find a syringe, she says.

It took almost two weeks for Hanna Nielsen to get what she needed and she is upset that the pharmacies did not have large stocks in readiness when the medicine was not available from the supplier.

- I got really angry that they did not exist and it is a problem that the pharmacies do not have enough inventory when there is a production defect at the supplier. The adrenaline syringes are so incredibly important, we who use them take them when it is life threatening. We can die if we don't take the syringes, ”says Hanna Nielsen.

Hanna Nielsen says that she has also had difficulty obtaining cortisone tablets, which is also an emergency medicine.

- When it is a strong pollen season, demand increases. Then it also became a problem for me to get my medicines out at the pharmacies because the demand for these medicines was increasing, she says.

When medications run out, how do you feel?

- I get stressed because I know I have to have it to feel good. If I miss some medication one day because I do not have medication, then I get really sick, then I end up in the emergency room. If I don't have any of them, I have to stay home, because I don't know if my body can handle it or not, says Hanna Nielsen.