Leave supply to PHA: Sapuri

By LULU MARK
THE Health Department’s supply system should be based with provincial health authorities (PHAs), West New Britain PHA chairman Dr Mathias Sapuri says.
Sapuri, who is also the United Nations in-country physician and chief obstetrician and gynecologist at the Pacific International Hospital (PIH), said money for medical supplies needed to go to PHAs and the Health Department should only be responsible for policy and monitoring.
He said if provincial health authorities did not get the system working then the people in charge should be blamed and urged to fix the problem.
Sapuri said the current system where medical supplies from Waigani had to go through the base store then to the area medical stores and then to the provinces and districts was inefficient and impractical.
He said it was an unnecessarily long system and the problem was there were many leakages along the way.
“The leakage is found from the top all the way down to the rural aid-post,” he said.
“That system has to be cut.
“We need a system where the supplier takes the medicine from where it is buying and supplying to the door step of the PHA.
“The PHA then takes it from there to the community health post.
“When we have this, the supply and distribution system has already been shortened.”
Sapuri said an electronic system to monitor contracts, supply and distribution was also needed.
“The biggest challenge for me in the province is fixing the supply system.”
He said the West New Britain provincial health authority was looking towards a future where everything would get registered at Kimbe General Hospital then supplied to various locations.
Sapuri said such a system would show exactly how much of a particular drug was in stock and if it was oversupplied in an area it could be moved to another area that was lacking.
He added that it could prevent theft and mismanagement of supplies.
Sapuri said it would need more technology and commitment to be able to deliver such a system.