MoH accounting officer, Kolaatamo Malefho told the committee that they are considering the move to combat shortage of drugs and long queues in public health facilities. He said that if implemented, the system would allow patients from public clinics and hospitals to get drugs from private pharmacies who would claim money from government at an agreed price. Malefho was responding to a question from Moiseraela Goya, who asked him to comment on the shortage of drugs in public health facilities and the practice by some health workers to send patients elsewhere for drugs.
Malefho said he was aware that some health workers ask patients to go look for drugs elsewhere. He acknowledged that sometimes, it is not a matter of shortage of drugs, but an absence of pharmacists in the dispensaries. He said it would be difficult for a nurse, who is attending to patients, to abandon them to go and dispense drugs. Shortage of drugs is a persistent problem in public health facilities, even extending to essential life-saving medicine such as ARVs and drugs for hypertensive and diabetic patients. Last year, local clinics and hospitals in the country were hard-hit by a month long shortage of Aluvia, a drug that is part of the ARV treatment.
