An interview with Ursula Szybowicz, president of the Foundation You Can't See Past Me.
Ursula Szybowicz: Introducing a drug program in drug-resistant depression will improve patients' quality of life
Published July 1, 2023 13:09
If we are talking about depression in general and drug-resistant depression, how large a group of patients do we have in mind?
Depression at the moment affects about one and a half million Poles, 30 percent of whom suffer from drug-resistant depression. These are people in whom at least two different drugs used in different combinations, from different groups of active substance, do not produce a positive effect. This is a huge problem of half a million people suffering from depression, and we know that this number may be underestimated. Drug-resistant depression causes them major problems in daily functioning, the kind that depression causes, but to a greater degree. These patients feel no sense of life. Our foundation spoke with several such patients. They said that if it weren't for the fact that they have daily responsibilities, such as child care or work, they would have no need for life. They need the support of those around them, they are incapacitated for longer, so the cost of social security or sick leave, which they unfortunately have to take, increases. Introducing esketamine to the reimbursable drug program will definitely improve their quality of life. In the long run, it will result in lower costs for treating drug-resistant depression than if patients stay on sick leave longer.
This reimbursement has been sought for a long time. To date, the cost of esketamine therapy has probably been prohibitive for many patients....
The cost a patient had to pay for treatment with esketamine before it was included in reimbursement on July 1 reached up to 25,000 per month. In our opinion, few patients could afford such expensive treatment. And unfortunately, many suffered because of it. Therefore, we are very happy that there is already a new treatment option. For several years we had no molecule that we could include in the treatment of drug-resistant depression. As of 2019, it is there, and I am very happy that it will be widely available to Polish patients starting in July.
