Gov’t inherited drug shortage problem from Coalition

– $12B already spent to obtain emergency drugs

Since the PPP/C Administration took office in August, the Ministry of Health has been forced to dump 300 truckloads of expired drugs worth $3 billion and it is working tirelessly to remedy the drug shortages countrywide.

During a virtual press conference today, Minister, Hon. Dr Frank Anthony said the current shortage was inherited from the Coalition Government. He said the new administration met a Material Management Unit (MMU) that was well-stocked with mostly expired medication.

“More than 80 per cent of the MMU bond space was occupied with expired medicines, and supplies and therefore, we could not use these medicines.

Since August of 2020, we have been working very hard with the Food and Drug Department to start clearing out all of these expired medicines that we have at the MMU,” he said.

Minister Anthony explained that from August to October 2020, some $1 billion in drugs were dumped and another $1 billion from October to date. Those amounts did not include the $1 billion worth of expired drugs at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC).  Most of the drugs dumped were procured in 2017. Additionally, an examination of the disposal records over the last several years, revealed an estimated $10 billion of expired drugs were dumped.

The Health Minister said the chronic drug shortage highlights the previous administration’s mismanagement of the procurement and distribution process.

Prior to 2015, the health sector supplies were provided by the MMU, which had the capacity to meet 95 per cent to 100 per cent of the regions’ needs. However, between January and October 2020, the situation was chronic as the MMU could satisfy no more than 15 per cent of the requests made.

“This was a really chronic situation that we inherited. In some cases, some of the important medicines like for TB, HIV patients, some of these things were at zero.

In terms of a lot of our chronic disease patients in terms of diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, many of these medicines were almost at zero. To sustain the operations at our theatres, many of the drugs that we need to use in the theatres were not available,” he said.

Expired drugs being destroyed

Meanwhile, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, Advisor to the Minister of Health, said the issue was due largely to the fact that the information system was not kept updated.  He explained that there was a disconnect between what was being utilised in the regions and what was bought under the previous administration.

“A very, very important part of the procurement process is your consumption report. Every region has a consumption pattern, whether it has to deal with the infectious diseases like malaria, TB and HIV, or the chronic diseases like diabetes, et cetera.

Those consumption reports from the region represent the fundamental principle to which you determine how much you will buy. So, two critical pieces of information were not being used. One, what we have or what we don’t have and secondly, the pattern of usage in the region,” Dr Ramsammy said.

Minister Anthony noted that much has been done over the last eight months to fix the situation, and systems are being put in place to ensure there is no recurrence. The electronic tracking medical system which was down has been restored and updated.

“We have appointed in every region someone who is responsible for pharmaceutical supplies that they can check in those regions what are the levels of stock and to constantly report that to the MMU so that they don’t have to wait until there is a shortage.

There is a threshold that is set and once that threshold is met, automatically we would be able to send medicines to that region,” Dr. Anthony said.

The Minister said in the long term, the entire system would be computerised and the inventory levels would be accessed in real time. This will also allow orders to be made electronically as opposed to previous manual system.

“The key thing here is to make sure that we bring medicines into the system and get it out to people because we don’t want people coming to the hospital or the health centres and they have to use a prescription to go and buy stuff,” he said.

The Government has also spent $12 billion dollars to procure emergency supplies to remedy the problem. Some $4 billion was spent on essential medication while another $5 billion went towards acquiring personal protective equipment. Additionally, $3 billion was used to procure chemical reagents for the laboratories. The Ministry hopes to have the situation remedied by July.