Doctors contracted with the national health system (Gesy) are reportedly scrambling to modify patients’ prescriptions following a mass recall of pharmaceutical products by Remedica.

According to Phileleftheros, patients are also having difficulty getting in touch with their physicians, while at the same time many pharmacies are shut ahead of the mid-August holiday.

For some of the recalled products, Gesy has stocks of equivalent medicines as replacements.

The recalls were announced by Remedica on Monday.

The Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) – the agency administering Gesy – is striving find a technical means for Gesy-contracted pharmacists to substitute these directly, without requiring an immediate change to prescriptions.

An even bigger problem exists when it comes to medicines where no equivalent alternatives are available. For these products, doctors will need to change patients’ treatment, at least until the HIO completes a process – already underway – to secure stocks from other sources.

For one such product, the paper reported, stocks of the equivalent medicine have been found.

The HIO is expected to issue an announcement sometime this week with detailed instructions for each product on the recall list.

Remedica, manufacturer of generic medicines, had earlier announced a ‘voluntary’ recall of certain batches of drugs. The company said this was done as a precaution, and that there are no safety concerns for patients taking the products.

A voluntary recall is an action where a company chooses to remove or fix a defective or unsafe product on its own initiative.

The affected batches related to nine pharmaceutical products. These included Carvidex, a prescription beta-blocker medication used to treat high blood pressure, heart-related chest pain (angina), and heart failure; and Clonotril, primarily used to treat seizure disorders (epilepsy) and panic or anxiety.