Shortage of drugs in govt facilities must be checked

What you need to know:

  • The issue is not new. It is one of the huge challenges our public health facilities have, for long, grappled with. The hospitals are supplied drugs by the MSD.

In yesterday’s issue of The Citizen, we carried a story highlighting a perennial problem in our health sector: drug shortage in public hospitals. The story brought to light the desperate situation the Medical Stores Department (MSD) is in. It is owed Sh142 billion by the government.

The issue is not new. It is one of the huge challenges our public health facilities have, for long, grappled with. The hospitals are supplied drugs by the MSD.

Unfortunately, not much has been done to address the matter once and for all, which would have entailed putting in place a systems that ensures smooth-running of the MSD.

The supply of drugs to public hospitals is being hampered by serious shortage of funds the MSD faces. A drugs supply monitoring undertaken by the health NGO, Sikika, indicates that the government has provided only 32 per cent of the money that the agency needs for quarter ending on Friday.

It further reveals that the government has only released Sh20 billion to MSD for the purchase of important medicines and medical supplies by September 16, out of the Sh62.5 billion that should have been released for the July-September quarter.

In mid this year, the Parliament approved for the MSD Sh250 billion for the 2016/17 fiscal year. As of September 16, the agency’s warehouses in the country had only 170 units of Paracetamol tablets with one unit containing 1,000 tables.

It is the ordinary citizens who are seriously affected by the shortage of drugs and other medical sundries at public hospitals.

Private pharmacies

In some government health institutions, patients are forced to buy medicines from private pharmacies.

This is something which can no longer be glossed over, for it endangers the lives of many hapless patients. It is a situation that calls for a swift and pragmatic response from relevant authorities.

This depressing scenario isn’t confined to one or two public hospitals; it is a worrying situation which is quite widespread. In rural areas, some State-run health facilities have ceased to perform their primary function.

Looking at the cases highlighted above, it is easy to find out where the problem is. In most of these cases, the Medical Stores Department (MSD) has been castigated by health centres for the delays.

MSD has, however, often blamed slow supply of drugs to the public hospitals on lack of funds as it owed billions by the State. In some cases, the agency says it supplies health units after receiving their orders.

So where is the problem? Do the health centres send their orders late? Is the government not committed to addressing the challenges that affect timely delivery of drugs and other medical supplies to health facilities?

These are questions the Health ministry, administrators of facilities and MSD should critically study and answer if we are to rid our health sector of the chronic problem of drug shortage.

While the government is hailed for its cost-cutting drive and war against corruption, for some, shortage of drugs in public hospitals is a clear case of misplaced priorities.