Doctors: Stop drug contracts

By REBECCA KUKU
THE National Doctor’s Association (NDA) has questioned the Government’s rationale of awarding contracts to the private sector for the supply of medical kits and medicine.
“Why can’t the Government set up its own department to procure medical kits and medicine directly, either, from the World Health Organisation (WHO)-certified suppliers, like the International Dispensary Association (IDA) or equivalent, or directly from manufacturers in Asia, Australia, the US or Europe?
“Generic medicines procured this way will be cheaper and effective,” NDA secretary and chief of emergency medicine Dr Sam Yockopua lamented to The National yesterday.
“The Government could have just established its own procurement department or unit comprising officials and experts from the National Department of Health (NDOH), Planning, Finance, Medical School, Port Moresby General Hospital, Medical Board, Pharmacy Board.
“They can then create an Information Communications Technology (ICT)-backed system that is fully funded and utilised in the Area Medical Store (AMS) supply system,” he added.
Yockopua was commenting on The National’s front page report that Borneo Pacific Pharmaceutical Ltd (BPPL) has secured two one-year contracts worth more than K100 million to supply medical kits and antibiotics.
Health secretary Pascoe Kase announced yesterday that the National Executive Council (NEC) approved the recommendation by the NDOH to award the contracts to BPPL.
The contract for medical kits is worth K65.3 million and the other for antibiotics is K43.5 million.
Yockopua said: “The medicine testing laboratory that was purportedly set up by NDOH check medicines supplied is no longer functioning.
“So we don’t know what the private sector suppliers are bringing in to us. We have seen medicines that are close to expiry dates.
“We have also seen medicines that did not work, so some may even be fake medicines and that is why NDA has been urging the Government to review or stop the current procurement system of tendering out supply of medicines to the private sector,” he said, adding that people must now be prepared to suffer further.