A chronic shortage of medication has been ongoing for months in North West public health facilities, according to the recently released third edition of the State of Health report in that province, which found that in one case, a cleaner had been in charge of stock supplies.
The data were collected by the Stop Stockouts Project, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and Ritshidze from across 72 sites, and revealed 404 reports of different medicines, contraceptives and vaccines being out of stock in the preceding three months.
Ritshidze is a community-led monitoring system developed by organisations representing people living with HIV, including the TAC, National Association of People Living with HIV, Positive Action Campaign, Positive Women's Network and South African Network of Religious Leaders living with and affected by HIV/Aids.
News24 reports that more than 400 clinics and community healthcare centres across 29 districts in eight provinces are monitored.
The North West Health Department said it struggled to keep up with medicine demand in May, and patients complained of being turned away from clinics because of a medication shortage.
The report read said that 21% of reported stockouts had lasted between one and three months; 11% had lasted between three and six months, and 7% had been ongoing for more than six months.
“Worryingly, 60% of these stockouts had not been resolved at the time of the survey, and 49% of sites blamed unreliable transportation for stock not arriving on time, while 81% of facilities had to borrow from other facilities, only creating an ongoing cycle of shortages.”
According to the report, stockouts and shortages of medicines and medical tools caused disruption, confusion, cost and detrimentally affected treatment adherence.
“Similarly to last year, while protocol dictates that pharmacists or professional nurses should be responsible for stock, enrolled nurses, enrolled nurses’ assistants, facility managers, and even a cleaner acted in that capacity in some sites. This year … 17% of facilities had a pharmacist.
“The stockouts and shortage … affected HIV, TB, analgesic medicines, cardiac medicines, dry stock, maternal health medicines, vaccines, contraceptives and psychiatric medicines,” read the report.
The report recommended that pharmacist assistants, whose contracts ended in march 2021, be reinstated to help identify low stocks, and relieve pressure on professional nurses and others to focus on their core mandates.
North West Health spokesperson Tebogo Lekgethwane said the department was “internalising the report to draft an implementation plan to action all recommendations”.
He said the department had managed to sustain above 80% of medicine availability provincially, and that national and provincial treasuries had appointed experts in 2022 to investigate pharmaceutical services further.
“… the current funding level is inadequate, as demonstrated by the report and budget estimates. This results in accruals annually, leading to accounts being put on hold at the beginning of the financial year,” he added.
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See more from MedicalBrief archives:
TB drug shortages hamper North West healthcare
Civil society report on medication collections at North West health facilities
North West Health intervention: challenges persist four years later