The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Pharmacists are blaming government for failing to account for drugs that expire from stores.
Sam Opio, the Secretary of the Pharmaceutical Society of Uganda said even as the annual drug availability report launched on Thursday by the Medicines Transparency Alliance puts drug availability in facilities low at 36%, government cannot account for the medicines that they receive annually.
He said this is due to the fact that there are no technical people employed at facility level to keep track of what drugs are used, what drugs expire and what are left over for a particular year.
Neville Okuwa Oteba, the Commissioner Pharmacy at the Ministry of Health she they are challenged on accountability because of absence of pharmacists in lower-level facilities.
She said accounting is made worse by the fact that there are many sources of drugs where some are from donors and others supplied by the National Medical Stores.
Without putting a figure to how much drugs are lost, Oteba said they are aware that some of such packages end up not being used.
She, however, notes that they are trying to enhance the NMS delivery model by improving the electronic model where drugs are well monitored from the time they leave the stores in Entebbe to the time they reach the facilities.
The $10.3million electronic system dubbed Enterprise Resource Planning software was installed by USAID in February with an aim of not only helping NMS with procuring but also help facilities to account.
The system has a tracking device which shows where drugs have been diverted or stolen from.
She said once this system is rolled out to all facilities, there will be enough drugs for those who need them in the various facilities.
However even as she says this, the latest NMS quantifying report shows that the lowest health facilities in the country HCIIs need shs 26 billion to cater for their annual drug needs but government allocates them only Shs 11 billion for their credit line commodities.
While HCIIIs need Shs 42 billion, they only get Shs 30 billion and yet HCIVs get Shs 12 billion and yet their drug need stood at Shs29billion in 2018.
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