By MERVIS MUSONDA
THERE is need for the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) to ensure that they come up with mechanism that will make them efficient when it comes to acquisition of drugs, says Health Minister Sylvia Masebo.
Ms Masebo, who made a fact finding tour at UTH to see the extent of shortage of reagents at the institution said it is not correct to say the laboratory was not working.
She said the issue was that there was no consistency and that what was on the ground was the flow where they had to wait for what they have in stock to finish before they could receive other drugs.
She said that people were peddling lies and that it was politics at play.
“I want to urge management to make sure there is no drug pilferage at the health facility,” Ms Masebo said.
And National Coordinator for Laboratory Services Aaron Chibemba denied allegations that the UTH main laboratory used for full blood count test had not be operating for the past two months.
Dr Chibemba said the laboratory had been fully operational, as the public has been misled by some section of society.
He said sometimes the laboratory run out of reagents, but it uses other laboratories to do the blood count test.
Dr Chibemba even when the main laboratory has challenges with the reagents, the hospital cannot halt the blood tests because it has other alternatives.
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