Questions were today raised in parliament about the shortage of medicine around the country.
Member for Bulolo, Sam Basil Junior queried whether the National Department of Health was fully funded to carry out its duties.
Basil told parliament Morobe Province was taking the lead in the ‘Nogat Marasin’ campaign and sought answers from the National Department of Health as to why there was no basic medicine in hospitals.
“Number one question is; was the NDoH fully funded as per 2023 budget? Number two is; was PHA given the full budget quarterly or annually to cater for the district hospitals and rural health centers in terms of consumable drugs and logistics? And number 3 is; Can the national government consider increasing the 2024 budget of health sector? What is the National Government planning to immediately solve this issue?” Health Minister Dr Lino Tom in response explained where the problem was.
“In terms of the funding to NDoH, timely release of warrants is one of the biggest problems we face, but we have looked at some measures to mitigate this issue and one of such measure is, in discussion with the Treasury secretary, we planned for APCs to be committed to health department, when funds are not released on time, we can still go ahead and start asking our distributors or contractors with the procurement process.”
To answer, Basil Jnr’s question on whether PHA were given the full budget to cater for district hospitals, Dr Tom said budgets are not usually adequate given all the competing priorities but in the last few years, Health department has been prioritized. Despite that, the department still faces budget shortfalls to procure medical supplies.
“We get a considerable amount of budget but because of the procurement issues we have the NDoH can’t go ahead and buy medicine when there is no proper feedback from the PHAs. One of the big problems we have is the PHAs are not doing their due diligence and when medicine run short they are crying out to the media, so I had to put out a statement and warned all PHA CEOs they need to start ticking all their requirements before they go to the media. “
He assured the country that NDoH has made a lot of reforms in that space. A consultant has been in the country for the last 6 months and from the report from that consultant, NDoH can come up with a strategic plan to address these issues, one of which is to create an independent Procurement commission for medicine.