Minister blames drug shortage on health sector employees

…says electric system will relieve situation

In response to claims of widespread drug shortages across Guyana, Public Health Minister, Volda Lawrence has made it clear that there is no unavailability of medical supplies.

According to the Minister, drugs are oftentimes available at the various storage facilities in the respective regions, however, it is the responsibility of the public health sector workers to ensure the supplies are requested before they are depleted.
Lawrence was at the time responding to questions at the sidelines of an event on Wednesday.
“This we have been trying to grapple with and that’s why we are trying to move as quickly as possible to ensure we have electriconise the system, so that persons will be able to see in the system what is happening because many times the drugs and the supplies are there either at the local level at their warehouse or it is at the Ministry’s level and if persons do not make a request then that will not be fulfilled and sometimes we have a lot of system failures where persons don’t do what they’re supposed to in a timely manner,” she explained.
Just one week ago, it was reported that medical supplies were lacking in Region One (Barima-Waini). Toshao of Kamwatta Hill, Maurice Henry stated that complaints were being raised by health officials about the shortage of medicines for quite some time.
“There is shortage of drugs for a long while. There’s a young health worker who recently started working and he said he hasn’t received any kind of drugs in adequate amounts although they made requests. When the former health worker was there, we used to get complaints about the shortage of drugs,” Henry noted.
On July 31, the Ministry’s Public Relations Officer, Terrence Esseboom, confirmed that the country’s premier health institution, the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) ran out of medication to treat malaria. The medication was, however, available but the staff did not make a request for it.
The specific drug was not stocked in the main pharmacy so a patient had to endure intense pains and high fever in the hospital’s ward. This could have been avoided if staffers would have requested the treatment earlier from the Vector Control Services, which is a stone’s throw away from GPHC, the PRO explained.