WE shudder to imagine how many hapless Zambians have died due to the perennial shortage of drugs in the country’s health centres, innocent victims in a vicious political vendetta.
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That political vendetta, carried out without any qualms on the effects it would have in the health care delivery system has been at quite a cost.
Zambians have always believed that operations in the Ministry of Health – ranging from drug procurement and human resource management – have been politicised. The Zambia Medicines and Medical Supplies Agency (ZAMMSA), has finally confirmed what Zambians have always accepted as a fact.
ZAMMSA says the country suffered from critical and persistent shortage of essential medicines and other medical supplies because of interference from government in the procurement process which did not want the purchase of drugs from traditional suppliers.
Dr Anna Chifungula, the ZAMSA board chairperson says the agency was not allowed to procure medicines and other medical supplies from suppliers which were considered not be in good standing with the new dawn administration. Dr Chifungula said the shortage of medicines in hospitals had become so dire that ZAMMSA was at some point compelled to request that office of the President officials should be involved to help guide which companies should be contracted to supply and deliver drugs.
When the new dawn administration took over the reins of government, it sought to practically start afresh, rubbishing all that the previous administration had done.
Thus, the Ministry of Health, in one of its earliest acts cancelled and removed suppliers of medicines, claiming that there was corruption involved – that it was cleaning the system. With the supply chain disrupted, it was not surprising that clinics and hospitals run out of medicines. The Minister of Health, Ms Sylvia Masebo argued the country had adequate stocks.
We are glad that ZAMMSA has credited the report on the persistent shortage of drugs in hospitals by the Parliamentary Committee which was constituted by the Speaker of the National Assembly that it was a good report as it had reflected a true situation of what was obtaining in the health sector. Yet, the report was shot down by the government in the National Assembly not because it was flawed, it was politics at play.
In the meantime, Zambians have lost confidence in the government-run health facilities because all that patients get are prescriptions, some written on plain paper without even an official date stamp of the health institution.
Government has refused to admit that there is a shortage of medicines at its clinics and hospitals, and has instead put the blame on health personnel, that they are the ones who have pilfered the medicines. It took Justice Minister Mulambo Haimbe when he acted as minister of Health recently to admit that the country only had 42 percent capacity of the medicines it needed. Dr Chifungula should be commended for being honest instead of pretending that all is well in the health sector which despite being funded is in shambles thanks to politicking.
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