Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 03/Dec 03:11

$80m waste

TIME AND time again, we are told of the shortages in the public health system. There’s a shortage of doctors. There’s a shortage of nurses. Not enough hospital beds are available. Waiting times for treatment, clinics, lab reports and support services such as cardiology and radiology are notoriously long. So, the confirmation before a parliamentary committee on December 1 that at least $80 million in unused drugs remained in storage over a ten-year period and expired stands out. It’s progress, but it’s not the type of progress we need. Drug waste will always be a fact of life in any health system. Patients might die, suffer side effects, take incorrect doses or simply forget their regimen – leaving drugs unused. But in countries like the UK, suboptimal management of drug inventories at hospitals has been identified as a factor. In 2015, a report by the National Health Service estimated annual drug waste of £300 million per year. In the US, billions of dollars’ worth of expired pharmaceuticals are discarded annually. But the $80 million figure is significant. And it is likely an under-estimation given the fact that enhancements in tracking and accuracy through digitisation are relatively recent developments. In fact, Lackram Bodoe in June told MPs during debate of the mid-year review that the $80 million figure related to stores between 2020-2025. The discrepancy between the health minister’s five-year time frame and the ten-year time frame officials this week gave to Parliament’s public administration and appropriations committee simply underlines the sense of a confused system prone to error and to expensive and extravagant waste. To study the way medicines are procured for the use of public health facilities in this country is to come face to face with the inefficiencies that bedevil the health system as a whole. Patients interact with facilities run by regional health authorities. But drugs are purchased in a centralised way through the health ministry. Except not. They are actually bought by an entity contracted by the ministry, Nipdec. These layers of administration alone suggest the root causes of over-projection of drug needs. North Central Regional Health Authority CEO Davlin Thomas could not even confirm how data is transmitted to the ministry when interviewed this week by this newspaper. Having too much medicine will always be preferable to not having enough. But think of what the lost $80 million could have been spent on had it been diverted into other areas. Shortages are too chronic – sometimes even in pharmacies inside hospitals themselves – for these kinds of inefficiencies to be allowed to continue at such a scale. Increased digitisation will help, but better-co-ordinated oversight is badly needed. The post $80m waste appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.