It is only ten days since the new Irfaan Ali-led Government has been in office, replacing the David Granger-led Government, but already the new Government has discovered volumes of evidence of corruption, incompetence, and worse: stories of wastefulness and total disinterest of the past David Granger-led APNU+AFC Government that boggle the mind. One of the ugly stories that have people shaking their heads in disgust is the story that the Government’s Warehouse at Diamond is filled beyond capacity, with no room to store anything more. Every available space, including the aisle between the racks, is filled. Therefore, it is baffling people why, for five years, Guyana’s health sector has suffered from severe shortages of medicines and medical supplies. For example, right as at this time, there are no medicines for HIV+ patients. There is an easy answer: most of what are occupying valuable space at the warehouse are either expired medicines or obsolete items, items not being used by the health sector.
In 2015, the warehouse stored just over 2,000 SKUs (Stock Keeping Units). In layman’s terms, it means that the warehouse carried just over 2,000 products at that time. As at right now, the warehouse stocks more than 4,000 products. On the surface, it might mean that the APNU+AFC Government stocked many more items. But almost 1,500 products (SKUs) in the warehouse are obsolete items, items the health sector does not use. Why were so many new products added to the list of products stored at the MMU when there never was any use for these items?
In 2015, when there were just over 2,000 SKUs, these were all active SKUs. It means that the addition of almost 2,000 new SKUs was mostly of unusable products. How much did we spend buying these products? Did we get these products as gifts, and then discovered we have no use for them? In 2015, there was an active donation guideline to prevent the sector from accumulating products that were not used in Guyana. That so many SKUs are inactive is a story of total neglect, gross incompetence, and unbelievable disinterest.
The consequence is that medicines and supplies desperately needed at hospitals and health centres cannot be procured because there would be no place to put them.
COVID-19 continues to escalate in Guyana. As the new Government expands the testing capacity and introduces a more robust testing algorithm, providing the Guyanese people with more testing access, more cases will be confirmed. On Sunday, Region 5 confirmed its first case of COVID-19. This means that every single region in Guyana has now reported a COVID-19 case. In this still dangerous environment, a new Government is trying to move the country forward, coping with the COVID-19 crisis on the one hand, and the stagnation of the socio-economic development of our country on the other hand.
The PPP Government is, by nature, a people’s government – it is a Government that is constantly moving among the people. Government Ministers and officials have been cautious, but COVID-19, while limiting their movement, has not stopped the Ministers and officials from reaching out to the people. As these ministers and officials move among the people, appealing to them to comply with public health measures to stymie COVID-19, the sore question of medicines and medical supplies is constantly being queried.
For five years, hospitals and health centres have not been able to provide patients with regular supplies of medicines. In fact, most people insist that, most of the time, they are told there are no medicines. But not only has the health sector been suffocated because of the poor supply of medicines, the health sector has similarly suffered from a shortage of medical supplies. There have been too many instances when hospital services were impeded because of shortages of critical medical supplies. There have been too many instances when, for example, operating rooms have had to be closed because critical items were in short supply.
But while the healthcare facilities have been starved of much-needed medicines and medical supplies, these same supplies have been left to become expired at the Diamond Warehouse. While every dollar matters, critical financing has gone into procure medicines and medical supplies that the Guyanese health sector is not using. An oversight can lead to one or two SKUs that are unusable in the health sector, but when the number of unusable SKUs is a mountain about 1,500 SKUs high, it is not an oversight; it is corruption, pure and simple. Compounding the scandal is that these 1500 products that are occupying valuable space at the warehouse are preventing the safe, secure, international standard storage of medicines that the doctors need for sick people throughout Guyana.
This sad state of affairs at the Government’s warehouse at Diamond must be remedied now. What makes this sad state unfathomable is that there are many competent personnel at the warehouse, but their hands have been tied over the last several years.
