Sufficient stocks for three months :

Inefficient administrators to blame for drug shortages – Health Ministry

by Carol Aloysius

The frequent medicinal drug shortages in hospitals are due to inefficient administrators, misleading information and drug cartels, health sources said. “Most drugs are freely available. The Medical Supplies Division (MSD) has already imported stocks for the next three months,” Health Ministry media spokesman W.A.D Wanninayake said.

He said patients themselves were at times to blame for the so-called shortages reported in the media. “When a particular drug issuing counter directs a patient to another counter where the drugs prescribed are available, some patients opt to buy them outside the hospital, rather than stand in another queue. They then say that the drugs they needed were not available at the hospital. It is this misleading information that the media reports, creates unnecessary panic among the public at large”, he said.

Non compliance of some state hospital administrators to a request by the Health Ministry to conduct in-house Drug Review Meetings once a month, had also resulted in drug shortages in some hospitals. “These monthly review meetings are intended to keep the Medical Drugs supplies Division updated on the current drug status of our state institutions.

If a hospital administrator hasn’t complied with this request, he could send the MSD a list of those outdated drugs instead of the current needs of the hospital concerned.

The MSD will provide them only the requirements quoted which may be insufficient to meet their current needs”, he said.

Those who did not supply the specific drugs requested by the Health Ministry in time, were also to blame. “The Health Ministry will import drugs on a country to country basis in future and ensure a regular supply to overcome this problem”, he said.