NMS General Manager, Moses Kamabare

The National Medical Stores has pledged to avoid the past mistakes that were the cause of the drugs expiring in stores while Ugandans in need of the drugs suffered.

This was in reaction to press reports that pinned NMS for being behind the loss of billions of shillings through its negligence that had caused the expiry of drugs.

The management of NMS has said in a press statement,  that it is true that the expiry of drugs used to take place in the past but under the new management of the institution the people of Uganda should be assured that it will not happen again.

The management says this will not happen again because there some changes that have been introduced in the institution that ensure that this does not happen again.

It says for example these days NMS procures drugs based on the needs of the people which are actually submitted in written form to NMS from the health facilities which means under the their new arrangement NMS only procures drugs that are needed.

NMS has also promised to fight perpetual stock outs through measures like their new arrangement where they have teamed up with the Ministry of Health to provide basic health kits in Health Center 2s and Health Center 3s. The kit contains medicines and other supplies needed at these health facilities which are sent there regularly without requisition orders.

The Management says they are optimistic that such a development will continue to help in improving stocks of medicines in all these health facilities.

By Zakaria Tiberindwa, Ultimate Media

The post Uganda National Medical Stores speaks out expired drugs first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

The Uganda Parliamentary Committee on Social Services has directed all Uganda districts to purchase at least 70% of their drugs from the government controlled National Medical Stores (NMS) as opposed to buying them from private drug companies.

Mulago Hospital building

The Member of Parliament for Bunya West, also a member of the committee Aggrey Henry Bagiire told journalists at Uganda Parliament today (29^th June 2010) that the policy has been to purchase at least 30% of the drugs from NMS by Uganda district governments.

Bagiire says the policy will help reduce the expiry of government drugs and increase availability of drugs in government hospitals and health centers.

In 2009 Uganda National Referral Hospital of Mulago faced an acute shortage of drugs yet there were drugs in NMS that could have been procured for the hospital. He says that if the new policy was in place, the hospital would not have had the drug shortage.

The Bunya West MP says that during the 2009/10 Uganda National budget, out of the 11 billion Uganda Shillings meant for drugs in Mulago Hospital, only 2 billion shillings was spent buying drugs from NMS.

Uganda continues to face shortage of drugs in various government owned hospitals and health centers partly due to corruption.

Zacharia Tiberindwa, Ultimate Media

The post Uganda districts directed to purchase 70% of drugs from NMS first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.