Authorities investigating medicine shortage in Nampula

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Authorities investigating medicine shortage in Nampula

8:02 CAT | 03 Mar 2020

in file CoM

The health authorities in the northern Mozambican province of Nampula have called on all users of the health service to denounce in good time cases where patients do not receive the medicines prescribed for them during consultations in the health units.

The provincial chief doctor, Sulaimana Isidoro, made this appeal in a meeting with journalists on Monday where he said that the province has enough medicines to assist the entire population of Nampula for more than six months.

Yet there are complaints from patents that they cannot acquire the medicines they need. These complaints increased in February, particularly in health units in the provincial capital, Nampula city.

“We have been receiving complaints, particularly from Nampula city, that in some health units the patients are told that there is a shortage of this or that medicine, particularly anti-malarial drugs”, said Isidoro. “That is not true, and we are not receiving these complaints from other parts of the province”.

What is happening in Nampula city is “strange”, he added, since the provincial and district medical warehouses are located in the city, and communication can easily flow if there really is a need to replace stocks of medicines.

Isidoro said a team from the Provincial Health Inspectorate is now investigating, to find out exactly who is refusing to serve patients “since the medicines were acquired by the government in order to treat the population”.

“We ask that people make their denunciations in real time, so that we can take pertinent measures – such as holding responsible those who ought to attend to the needs of patients, but do the opposite. That is absolutely unacceptable”, he said.

“We have stocks sufficient for more than six months in the provincial medical stores”, he said. Furthermore, a total of 2.034 kits of essential medicines had already been delivered to all 23 districts in the province.

Isidoro said the largest number of kits had gone to those districts (such as Larde, Moma, Angoche and Mogovolas) with the greatest difficulties of access.

Source: AIM