Mauritius Faces Double Crisis: Rising Drug Prices and Shortages

Mauritians seeking medication are increasingly caught between two painful realities: prices that keep climbing and shelves that are often bare. The country's pharmaceutical sector is facing a dual crisis — rising costs and recurring shortages — that is hitting ordinary patients hard. **The price problem** The cost of medicines in Mauritius has risen significantly in recent years, driven by a combination of global supply chain disruptions, currency depreciation, and import dependency. Mauritius imports the vast majority of its pharmaceutical products, meaning that any weakness in the Mauritian rupee against the US dollar or euro directly translates into higher retail prices at pharmacies. For many households — particularly those with chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, or asthma — the monthly bill for medication has become a serious financial burden. While the public health system, managed through the Ministry of Health and Wellness, provides a range of medicines free of charge at government hospitals and community health centres, the reality on the ground is more complicated. **The shortage problem** Stock-outs at public health facilities are a long-standing frustration for patients. When a medication is unavailable at a government facility, patients are typically redirected to private pharmacies — where they must pay out of pocket. This effectively transfers the cost burden onto the very people the public system is meant to protect. Shortages can arise for several reasons: procurement delays, regulatory bottlenecks, logistical issues, or insufficient buffer stock. In a small island economy like Mauritius, maintaining adequate pharmaceutical reserves is structurally challenging, especially for specialist or low-volume medicines. **Who is most affected?** The people most exposed to this double pressure are elderly patients on multiple long-term medications, low-income families who rely entirely on the public system, and individuals with rare or chronic conditions who need specialised drugs that may not be stocked consistently. Private health insurance can soften the blow for some, but coverage varies widely and many working-class Mauritians remain uninsured or underinsured. **What this means** This is not simply a supply-chain inconvenience — it is a public health issue. When patients cannot afford or access their medication, conditions go unmanaged, leading to complications that place even greater strain on the healthcare system. The situation calls for a structured policy response: improved procurement planning, stronger price regulation, and greater transparency in how pharmaceutical contracts are managed. Healthcare advocates and opposition figures have repeatedly called on the government to review its drug procurement framework and ensure that essential medicines remain both affordable and available — not just on paper, but on the shelf. Source: Le Défi Media