Lack of medicines in Zambezia public pharmacies – Mozambique

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Lack of medicines in Zambezia public pharmacies – Mozambique

7:40 CAT | 23 May 2017

Residents of Zambézia province in central Mozambique are angry at the shortage of medicines in hospital pharmacies, but authorities deny there is a problem.

Tomé Joaquim had to walk five kilometres to Alto Molocue rural hospital, a prescription for three medicines in his hand. But at the hospital pharmacy he was told that the drugs were sold out. “I didn’t get my medicine because they don;t have any drugs here,” he told DW Africa.

Joaquim’s case is far from unique. Patients complain that many Zambezia health facilities lack essential drugs to treat malaria or even cure simple headaches.

Unofficial medicine sales are rampant

Mothers with babies, the elderly and young come away empty-handed. This is what also happened to Anselmo Carlos. “I’ve been here for an hour and I haven’t been seen yet. Slow service and lack of medication are commonplace, and surgery hours are from 8 or 9 o’clock local time. There are problems in the hospital here, and we, the people, are suffering,” he says.

With no medicines available legitimately, those with money turn to the illegal sellers in the surrounding neighbourhoods. There, the drugs cost ten times more than in the hospital pharmacy.

Authorities maintain that there is no shortage of medicines

The Alto Molocue district health director declined to speak to DW Africa on the grounds of being unauthorized to do so, but Zambezia’s provincial director of health, Hidayate Kassim, denied any lack of medicines in public hospital pharmacies.

“We have essential and even alternative medicines to treat the most common diseases. That is to say, even if a certain drug is lacking, it can be replaced by others in stock. What we are doing now is working for better communication between the clinician and the pharmacist” to determine what medicines are available in the pharmacies.

Hidayate Kassim (DW/M.Mueia) — Zambezia’s provincial director of health, Hidayate Kassim, denies the lack of medicines.

But patients do not accept this explanation and insist their complaints are justified.

Francisco Antonio was similarly unable to buy his medicine, and he too complains about the slowness of service, which he says is getting worse. “I came to pick medicines for an abscess in my foot, but I’m still waiting.” Antonio lived in Zimbabwe for a few years, and says he never experienced similar problems there. “In Mozambique, that’s how it is. We’ve become accustomed to it – it’s our lot.”

Source: Deutsche Welle