Drug supply not an issue in ENB: Doc

By MICHAEL PHILIP
THE East New Britain health authority (PHA) says it does not have a medicine shortage and has enough supplies to cater for its hospitals, health centres and clinics.
PHA chief executive officer Dr Ako Yap said despite other provinces stating their struggles with medical supplies, ENB was managing its supplies which would need replenishing at the end of the month.
“For ENB, we have enough basic medical drugs available for our hospitals, health centres and clinics,” he said.
“What we are doing is in every order that we receive, we try to manage all the supplies to all our health facilities so that we have enough in stock.
“At this time we are supplying the third order supply of medical drugs and its expected to end by this month.
“So the fourth order supply will begin next month,” Yap said.
Following past concerns raised by the public over the delay of medical supplies into the province that caused some health centres and clinics to close, Yap said the procurement and distribution process of drugs was the Health Department’s responsibility.
“For us in the province, we distribute what is given by the department.
“We are not responsible for any delays of the medical supplies and people must understand that.
“The procurement and distribution process is taken care of by the Health Department.
“We play our part to distribute the drugs to our health centres and clinics when they get to our provincial medical store.”
Meanwhile, provincial pharmacist Leo Kume said despite the challenge of running short of medical supplies annually, they had managed to ensure all facilities were supplied with medicines.
“Every year we are faced with drug shortage in our health facilities.”