Run out of your medication in Malta: what to do

First, work out which situation you are in

If you are visiting and left the medicine or the prescription at home, you need a document a Maltese pharmacy can read. A prescription issued in another EU Member State is recognised as a rule, provided it carries the details listed in the Annex to Commission Implementing Directive 2012/52/EU, and that is the route this page is mostly about.

If you live here and your supply has run out because the prescription expired or the repeats were used up, the question is a review of established treatment. Where your medicine comes through the Government Formulary List and the POYC scheme, that scheme is the right and usually the cheapest route: ask at your POYC pharmacy or your health centre.

If what you actually have is a new symptom, or the medicine has stopped working, or you think the dose is wrong, then this is not a continuation. It needs a doctor who can examine you, and treating it as a supply problem only delays the right answer.

One situation is not on that list because it is not a paperwork problem at all. Chest pain, breathlessness at rest, fainting, a sudden severe headache, weakness on one side, confusion, bleeding that will not stop or a rash with fever mean immediate medical attention: an accident and emergency department, or 112.

What to have ready before you do anything else

Four pieces of information decide whether anyone can help you quickly. The international non-proprietary name of the active substance, which is the name of the medicine rather than the name on the box. The strength. The pharmaceutical form, so tablet, capsule, inhaler, patch, injection. And the dosage regimen, meaning how much you take and how often.

The fastest way to get all four is a photograph of the pack or of the leaflet inside it. The substance name is always printed there. If you have neither, a previous prescription, a pharmacy label or a discharge letter will usually carry it.

Add photo identification, because a pharmacist has to be able to match the name and date of birth on the prescription to the person at the counter. An identity card or a passport is what is meant.

Do not rely on the brand you know. The same substance is marketed under different brand names in different countries, so your box may not exist in Malta while the substance is entirely routine. That is exactly why the Annex names the substance rather than the brand.

How the cross-border route works at the counter

Directive 2011/24/EU starts from the position that the country where a prescription is written and the country where the medicine is collected need not be the same. Where the medicine is authorised for marketing in Malta, a prescription written in another Member State for a named patient can be dispensed here, subject to the national rules on dispensing.

Recognition can be limited where that is necessary and proportionate to safeguard human health, and where there are legitimate and justified doubts about the authenticity, content or comprehensibility of the individual prescription. A refusal based only on the country of issue is not permitted.

The pharmacist keeps the professional decision on whether the medicine is handed over, and may decline, for example where the document cannot be verified, where identity does not match, or where the product is simply not stocked. The pharmacy profession in Malta is regulated by the Pharmacy Council, and the medicines authorised here are a matter for the Medicines Authority.

A practical tip that saves a walk: ring the pharmacy first with the substance name, the strength and the pack size. If the product is not held, the pharmacist can usually say what can be ordered and what equivalent is available.

Which medicines fall outside this route

Article 11(6) of Directive 2011/24/EU excludes medicinal products subject to special medical prescription, which in practice means narcotic and psychotropic substances. Benzodiazepines, Z-drug hypnotics, opioid painkillers, stimulants used in attention disorders and gabapentinoids belong there.

If your regular treatment includes one of those, plan around it rather than hoping. Bring enough with you, in its original pack, with a copy of the prescription or a letter from your prescriber, and check the rules for carrying it before you travel. If you run out here, the route is a prescriber in Malta, not a document from abroad, and no pharmacy will dispense such a medicine on one.

An antibiotic for a new infection is outside the route for a different reason: the decision whether an antibiotic is needed at all, and which one, depends on an examination. Our page on /medicines/augmentin/ is written as information for that reason and does not lead to an order.

If you are a visitor and your prescription is at home

Ask someone at home to photograph the prescription and the pack, front and back, with the strength legible. A photograph is not itself a prescription, but it settles the four details a doctor or a pharmacist needs in order to help you.

If you hold a European Health Insurance Card, it covers necessary state-provided treatment during a temporary stay, on the same basis as for people insured in Malta. It is not a private reimbursement, it does not cover a private assessment, and what it covers in any individual case is a matter for the Ministry for Health rather than for us.

Where your treatment is established and you need it continued rather than reconsidered, our /repeat-prescription/ page sets out what a doctor needs in order to assess the request. Where you are not sure whether your situation is a continuation at all, /online-doctor/ explains the boundary.

What not to do while you sort it out

Do not stop a long-term medicine abruptly because the supply ran out. Several common treatments should be reduced gradually rather than stopped, and for some the rebound is worse than the original problem. If you are down to your last doses, say so when you make contact, because it changes what is advised.

Do not double a dose to catch up, and do not stretch a supply by halving doses without asking. Both change the treatment, and with several medicines the consequences are not proportionate to the change. Ask the question instead: pharmacists answer it every day.

Do not buy prescription medicines from a website that offers to supply them without any assessment, or from a market stall or a social media seller. Products from those sources are outside the authorised supply chain, and the Medicines Authority is the body that authorises medicines in Malta.

And do not take someone else's medicine because the box looks the same. The name on the box is not the name of the substance, and strengths differ between markets.

What we issue, and what we do not do

How we work: you fill in a medical questionnaire and a doctor reads your answers and the documents you attach. There is no video consultation, no telephone consultation and no live chat. If the doctor decides a prescription is appropriate, you receive a PDF prescription by e-mail, drawn up to the Annex of Commission Implementing Directive 2012/52/EU. You print it or open it on your phone and bring it to a pharmacy in Malta together with photo identification.

Two things about the document are worth stating plainly. The doctor is registered in Poland and is not registered with the Medical Council of Malta, which keeps the mandatory register of doctors here. The prescription is therefore a private cross-border document: it is not entered in any Maltese state health record, it does not appear in myHealth, and it is not part of the Government Formulary List or the POYC scheme. You pay for the medicine yourself at the pharmacy.

We do not prescribe benzodiazepines, Z-drug hypnotics, opioids, stimulants or gabapentinoids. Narcotic and psychotropic substances are excluded from cross-border prescriptions under Article 11(6) of Directive 2011/24/EU, and a first diagnosis, an antibiotic for a new infection or anything that needs an examination belongs with a doctor who can examine you in Malta.

A repeat prescription request costs 24,90 €, contraception 24,90 € and weight loss treatment 29,90 €; priority handling is an additional 9,90 €. The fee covers the medical assessment of your answers by a doctor, not the issuing of a document. If the doctor declines on medical or legal grounds, the fee is refunded. If the doctor asks you for documentation, you have at least 7 days to provide it and we will remind you before the deadline; if the consultation cannot be completed, we refund the full amount.