People in Mykolaiv are complaining about a shortage of hormone preparations: why are they hard to find in pharmacies?

There is a shortage of thyroid medicines in Mykolaiv. Photo: UNIAN

Residents of Mykolaiv are complaining about a shortage of hormone replacement therapy medicines for people with thyroid conditions. On social media, people are reporting that over the last few months it has been difficult to find the necessary medicines in the city’s pharmacies.

NikVesti investigated the reasons for the shortage, the availability of the medicines and when supplies are expected to resume.

Tetyana Akhtymovych, a resident of the city, brought the issue of the lack of medicines to the attention of the Mykolaiv City Council’s Contact Centre. She described searching for medicines in Mykolaiv’s pharmacies as a daily quest.

«There’s no L-thyroxine, no Sintorika, or any others. And if, by some miracle, they do appear somewhere, it’s only in small doses, which means spending more money to get the required dose.» Interestingly, these medicines are available in other cities,» the woman complained.

According to Yaroslav Ishchuk, an employee of the «Farmatsiia» municipal enterprise, the supply disruptions are primarily linked to the destruction of manufacturers’ and major pharmaceutical distributors’ warehouses.

«There was a gap in supplies for about a month. The medicine was nowhere to be found, not at a single distributor. This is called a market shortage; in other words, well, the medicine isn’t available – it may be out of stock for various reasons. As recently as the day before yesterday, there were still some remaining stocks in our network, albeit in remote areas. But it was there. If someone had made a specific enquiry, saying, «It’s nowhere to be found, we need it,» we would have found it through our network and delivered it,» explained Yaroslav Ishchuk.

As a result of Russian attacks, around 50 per cent of the warehouse infrastructure of pharmaceutical distributors in Ukraine has been destroyed. This includes Berlin-Chemie, as well as the distributors «Optima» and «Badm» in Odesa, and warehouses in Dnipro and Kyiv.

«A large warehouse in Dnipro burnt down, as did a large «Optima» warehouse in Odesa. And so on. And we’re talking about, for example, Berlin-Chemie and a number of other European manufacturers who kept their stock in Kyiv at one of the huge warehouses. A very large pharmaceutical warehouse there burnt to the ground a month ago. Psychotropic drugs were destroyed; cancer drugs were destroyed. Simply a colossal number of different medicines. To simply take them all at once and bring them here — well, that’s impossible,» he said.

The «Apteka Dobrogo Dnya» chain’s medicines warehouse following Russian shelling, 7 September. Photo: Serhiy Hornitsky

The «Apteka Dobrogo Dnya» chain’s medicines warehouse after the Russian shelling, 7 September. Photo: Serhiy Hornitsky

The «Apteka Dobrogo Dnya» chain’s medicines warehouse following Russian shelling, 7 September. Photo: Serhiy Hornitsky

According to him, the medicine has now begun to gradually reappear at distributors, though the bulk of supplies are concentrated in Dnipro. The further away from this logistics centre, the fewer medicines reach the pharmacies, says the expert.

Yaroslav Ishchuk says that, according to his information, the medicine is definitely available in four pharmacies in Mykolaiv, one of which is the «Farmatsiya» municipal enterprise. In each of these, stocks amounted to up to ten packs. The medicine is also available in the «Bazhayemo Zdorovia» chain.

Olesia Stadnichenko, deputy head of the State Service of Ukraine on Medicines and Medical Devices in the Mykolaiv region, also confirmed the supply issues. She said the situation had been affected by logistical disruptions, the destruction of warehouse infrastructure and low volumes of imports of foreign-manufactured medicines.

«Of course, people are anxious. Well, on the other hand, I’d like to ask people not to buy as many as 5–10 packs at a time, because then someone else might not get even a single one. But you can’t really explain that to someone in a pharmacy. And of course I understand that these are medicines people take regularly and cannot do without,» the official commented.

She added that, at the time of the conversation, it was difficult to find the Berlin-Chemie-manufactured medicine not only in pharmacies in Mykolaiv but also across the Mykolaiv region, and not all strengths were available. At the same time, the situation with another medicine based on the same active ingredient, «Eutirox», is better. According to her, it can be found in around 30–40 pharmacies.

Can the medicine be replaced with an alternative?

According to Olesia Stadnichenko, «Eutirox» contains the same active ingredient — levothyroxine sodium — as other medicines used for thyroid hormone replacement therapy. They differ in terms of manufacturers and brand names.

Therefore, if their usual medicine is unavailable, patients should consult their doctor to discuss the possibility of switching to another medicine with the appropriate dosage.

You can find «Eutirox» in Mykolaiv using the Tabletki.ua service. There, you can check which pharmacies in the city stock the required dosage of the medicine, find out its price and view the pharmacies’ addresses. You can also reserve the medicine via the service to ensure you receive it at your chosen pharmacy.

You can check the availability of the medicine itself and its equivalents via the tabletki.ua service. Screenshot from the website

You can check the availability of the medicine itself and its equivalents via the tabletki.ua service. Screenshot from the website

When might the situation improve?

According to Yaroslav Ishchuk’s forecast, the number of medicines available for sale is set to increase over the next two to three weeks. He explained that manufacturers are already resuming supplies, and large pharmacy chains will gradually start receiving new batches.

The State Service of Ukraine on Medicines also states that supplies are gradually being restored. Olesia Stadnichenko, an official, reported that the medicines underwent the import procedure into Ukraine on 2, 9 and 10 November. Once the necessary procedures have been completed, they are to be sent to the distributors’ warehouses.

It should be noted that problems with the availability of this category of medicines have arisen not only in Mykolaiv and have been ongoing since at least August–September 2026. Previously, the Ministry of Health stated that local disruptions to medicine supplies were caused by Russian attacks on pharmaceutical warehouses, disruptions to import logistics and panic buying. At the time, the Ministry of Health assured the public that there was no systemic shortage of medicines in Ukraine, and that distributors were reorganising their logistics to restore supplies.