E-Health System Failure Leaves Patients Without Prescription Medications
On Friday, June 26, all Latvian pharmacies were unable to dispense prescription drugs for several hours due to an e-health system outage. The Ministry of Health apologized, attributing the problem to a cut cable during construction work.
Last Friday, June 26, from 11:30 a.m. to approximately 4-5 p.m., all pharmacies across Latvia were unable to dispense prescription medications because the electronic health information system (e-health) was down. The system normally provides pharmacies with information about prescriptions issued by doctors, so without it, pharmacists could not release the drugs.
Oskars Šneiders, head of the Communications Department at the Ministry of Health, explained that the outage was caused by a sudden cable break during construction work at the state company "Digital Health Centre." The ministry apologized to the public for the inconvenience and promised to learn from the incident.
Pharmacies had not been warned about the system shutdown, unlike usual practice. Several pharmacists and patients expressed frustration. One patient who had traveled from the countryside was very upset, and a Jelgava resident, Rasma Urtāne, wrote on social media that she was incorrectly told at the pharmacy that e-health would be down until July 1. She also could not get a paper prescription because her family doctor was only available in the morning.
Ainis Dzalbs, head of the Latvian Rural Family Doctors Association, noted that the disruption also affected family practices – they could not issue referrals to specialists or complete sick leave certificates. He stressed that the digital system must be more reliable and that there should be no need to revert to paper documents.
On social media, many commenters criticized the situation and argued that an alternative is necessary – for example, the possibility to obtain medications with paper prescriptions when the electronic system fails.
