News / National
Zim Hospitals run short of morphine
27 Apr 2012 at 09:02hrs | Views
While the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare was allocated more than $500 million accounting for about 15% of the total 2012 national budget, treasury is yet to disburse the funds.
The delay in disbursing the funds is now negatively affecting government hospitals especially referral centres. The late disbursement of funds by treasury has triggered an acute shortage of critical medication like morphine and pethidine in government institutions, a situation that has seen chronic and terminally ill patients having to resort to other options.
Chitungwiza Hospital Chief Executive Dr Obadiah Moyo said the situation has worsened over the past two months and patients who are supposed to go for surgery or those experiencing acute pain are the most affected.
"The situation is quiet bad, and for the past two months things have not been improving. We have resorted to buying our own medication," he said.
A pharmacy technician at the same hospital Ms Ethel Mavhengere revealed that instead of 1 000 ampoules of morphine required on average per month, the hospital currently has only 40 which are expected to last for a week.
Out of the 3 000 injections of pethidine required on average every month, but only 350 are in stock.
Mavhengere said: "Our stocks are very low at the moment. We have less than a quarter of our monthly average requirement and we are not sure if our stocks will last a week."
The situation has been further worsened by the fact that local pharmaceutical companies are not producing drugs classified under narcotics due to high costs of production and importation of raw materials from neighbouring South Africa.
Some hospitals have now resorted to procuring their own medication rather than wait for the government allocation.
In some instances patients are being requested to purchase their own drugs.
The delay in disbursing the funds is now negatively affecting government hospitals especially referral centres. The late disbursement of funds by treasury has triggered an acute shortage of critical medication like morphine and pethidine in government institutions, a situation that has seen chronic and terminally ill patients having to resort to other options.
Chitungwiza Hospital Chief Executive Dr Obadiah Moyo said the situation has worsened over the past two months and patients who are supposed to go for surgery or those experiencing acute pain are the most affected.
"The situation is quiet bad, and for the past two months things have not been improving. We have resorted to buying our own medication," he said.
A pharmacy technician at the same hospital Ms Ethel Mavhengere revealed that instead of 1 000 ampoules of morphine required on average per month, the hospital currently has only 40 which are expected to last for a week.
Mavhengere said: "Our stocks are very low at the moment. We have less than a quarter of our monthly average requirement and we are not sure if our stocks will last a week."
The situation has been further worsened by the fact that local pharmaceutical companies are not producing drugs classified under narcotics due to high costs of production and importation of raw materials from neighbouring South Africa.
Some hospitals have now resorted to procuring their own medication rather than wait for the government allocation.
In some instances patients are being requested to purchase their own drugs.
Source - Zbc
