Ozempic shortage - 'I could lose my eyesight'
A diabetic man fears he could lose his eyesight because the Ozempic medication he needs is being bought up by "rich people to use for skinny jabs".
Philip Holland, 56, claims staff at Hainault Pharmacy told him their supplies of the drug have dwindled after it emerged it could help with "miracle" weight loss.
Full story at LondonWorld.com
(Video via SWNS)
Philip Holland, 56, claims staff at Hainault Pharmacy told him their supplies of the drug have dwindled after it emerged it could help with "miracle" weight loss.
Full story at LondonWorld.com
(Video via SWNS)
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hello, my name is Philip Holland. I'm an electrician and I live here in Leidenstern and I am a diabetic.
00:07 My wife and I are both diabetic so we both have a problem obviously with diabetes which people
00:14 don't realise it's obviously people who are a little bit overweight often get it but in my
00:17 case it's hereditary and unfortunately it affects your vital organs especially your eyes and as
00:26 somebody interested in electrics it makes life very difficult if my eyes go. So thankfully in
00:31 one of the great NHS successes I get checked every month every year sorry by the NHS who check my
00:41 eyesight at a dedicated centre here in Waltham Forest and I have this brilliant doctor Dr Channa
00:46 who works in the area as a specialist diabetes doctor and she got me on this which is a ZenPic
00:55 whoops a ZenPic and a ZenPic which is an injectable is the wonder drug when it comes
01:03 to controlling diabetes and both my wife and I our blood sugar levels went down to normal
01:08 blood sugar levels which means I don't get tired, I don't get the dryness in my mouth,
01:13 all comes from this wonderful pen and this pen here is a miracle of
01:23 engineering delivers a dose of four a month and you turn it around and it gives a pre-loaded dose
01:32 and you just inject it in. I actually feel like I should be saying wait there's more but
01:37 excellent thing however it has another benefit to other people and that is it takes away your
01:45 appetite. Now this is great but the trouble is people have been buying it off a prescription
01:54 from private companies and they've been using it for weight loss. Now if there was tons of it on
01:59 the market that would be great but there isn't there's a shortage and there's a shortage because
02:04 they can't make enough at the moment. Now I'm quite sure they're trying to change this but until that's
02:09 happening people are buying this spending a lot of money 100 quid over per month it's included
02:17 some famous people like Boris Johnson have bought it but it means that it's being shifted away from
02:23 the people like me and my wife and thousands of other people around the country who can't get
02:29 hold of it a drug we urgently need to protect our eyesight and frankly we think it's a national
02:35 scandal that the NHS is not getting it first.
02:40 This year is the first one I've got this year. I should be having one a month
02:53 and my wife should be having one a month. We've just got a great pharmacist
02:57 and he keeps me updated and telling me what's going on so you know it's certainly not them
03:02 that's the problem and he managed to get hold of two of them today which is it's like gold dust.
03:09 It also means other people just aren't getting them. I know the doctor nearby who has diabetes
03:15 and she can't get it and if she can't get it it's really really difficult so we should have had six
03:20 so far this month with another one coming next week or another two coming next week and we've
03:25 had two for all of this year so it's a major problem.
03:28 What advice would you give to a doctor who is trying to get hold of a prescription?
03:35 I think that the government needs to step in and tell the distributors they need to
03:42 prioritise pharmacies before it's sold off prescription.
03:49 you
03:50 you
03:50 you
03:51 you
03:51 you
03:52 you
03:53 you
03:54 [BLANK_AUDIO]