Medical kits lacked reviews

THE contents of the 100 per cent medical kits distributed to health facilities have not been reviewed for more than five years, according to a Public Accounts Committee report.
Committee chairman Sir John Pundari told Parliament yesterday that the updating of the essential medicines list and the reviewing of the quantity of different items packed depending on usage, had not been done.
“No regular review is conducted to ensure that the right amounts of drugs and medicines are packed and distributed based on the needs of each facility,” he said.
“So the medical kits oversupply or undersupply certain drugs.
“The committee identified that the shortage of medicines attributed to the medical kits at rural health facilities is mainly due to the undersupply of one particular drug in the medical kit for a particular disease that is more prevalent in that area. Currently, the supplier is delivering the medical kits as specified in accordance with its contractual requirements.”
Sir John said when a facility ran short of medicines and medical kits, it should be ordering from the nearest area medical store.
“In reality, however, when orders are sent by the facilities, medicines are not delivered on time or sometimes not at all.
“This is due to a number of reasons and lies under the domain of the Health Department and logistics companies.”
Sir John said although there were routine orders distributed by the “pull system” it only delivered to large hospitals, health centres and provincial health authorities.