Region Five working to eliminate drug shortages

GINA, GUYANA, Tuesday, April 11, 2017

The Region Five Administration will be one of the first regions to effectively implement a drug and material system which can eventually eliminate the region’s constant drug shortage.

The inventory software is a part of the Hospital Management System (HMS) designed to eliminate drug shortages which the region has experienced.

This was revealed by the Regional Health Officer (RHO) Dr. Steven Cheefoon, during a press conference on Tuesday, at the Regional Democratic Council’s boardroom, Fort Wellington, Berbice.

“This Hospital Management System (HMS) will greatly facilitate how effective the hospital will function, in a nutshell, since the drugs and medical supplies that go into the store need to go through a computer based system via barcode reading,” Dr. Cheefoon explained.

The RHO noted that the assistance of the barcode reading system which has the ability to track each item in and out of inventory, will also allow the administration to forecast the amount of medical supplies and drugs needed for the region.

The Administration has commenced a training programme for the store attendants within the pharmacy department so they can effectively operate the system.

Dr. Cheefoon stressed that the installation of the Electronic Drug Tool system in April will completely eliminate drug shortages in the region since it will have a list of the essential drugs in the region which is similar to the inventory system, but deals primarily with drugs.

“We will track all of the patients in the region, however since we do not know all of the patients we have in the region, and people can still double- dip so what we have designed is a programme where our community health workers will go out of the community and perform a health census,” the RHO added. He said that information collected from the census will be combined with the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system that the administration intends to install in the second quarter of 2017.

Last week, Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence said that there will be more stringent monitoring and record keeping of supplies received and distributed through the new management system expected to be implemented countrywide.

“We are also almost 99 percent complete (with) the new structure that we will put in place to monitor the receipts and issue and transfers and write off of drugs and gifts received. So I am hoping that somewhere by the end of this month I will be able to present that to Cabinet,” the Public Health Minister said.

By: Neola Damon