Drugs shortage persists in FCT-run hospitals

Alhough he said that most drugs were always available, especially on emergency cases, he admitted that patients are sometimes referred to registered pharmacies to get drugs that are not in stock at the hospital pharmacy.

“But it is very difficult for patients to come here without getting the prescribed drugs. If we don’t have them, it means we have run out of stock,” he explained, adding that the solar fridge where drugs are stored could hardly prevent drugs from expiring if not sold on time.

He said that about 75 per cent of prescribed drugs were always available, and that the pharmacy runs out of stock due to high demands.

“You see, the ideal thing is that some of the drugs doctors prescribe to patients cannot be in stock as they may get expired due to irregular demand from the patients,” he said.

At the Kwali General Hospital, a nurse who craved anonymity said only drugs with high demand rates are always in stock.

“The issue is that there are some drugs that are not on a high demand; so by the time you keep them inside the solar refrigerator,

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When one of our reporters contacted a pharmacist at the hospital, he declined to give his name because he was not authorised to talk to the press, but he said that prescribed drugs were always available at the pharmacy.

He, however, acknowledged that “the central store sometimes runs short of some drugs.” they would expire. This is because, even at the central store where the pharmacist goes to get the drugs, they are always careful as they wouldn’t want to lose,” he said.

Our reporter observed that some patients at the Abaji and Kwali general hospitals always get most of their prescribed drugs at private pharmacies outside the hospitals, and mostly at costly rates.

Most of the patients who spoke with Aso Chronicle expressed dismay that the only general hospital in the area council did not have adequate drugs to cater for the health needs of the local peasants.

At the Bwari General Hospital, the story is basically the same. Aso Chronicle observed how patients who wore long faces moved weakly and dejectedly from the hospital pharmacy to private pharmacies outside. For most of them who spoke with our reporters, it is a heartbreaking experience to go to a public hospital where they thought services would be subsidised, only to be told they could not get such services there.

Habiba Usman, a patient who said she was diagnosed with high blood pressure at the Bwari General Hospital, lamented that she has been coming for checkup every month for about two years now but she hardly gets drugs at the hospital’s pharmacy.

She said that at various times, she had to buy prescribed drugs at private pharmacies.

“Sometimes I begin to wonder the essence of coming to the hospital when you cannot get drugs there. I am beginning to think that it would be better to just go to a pharmacist and complain to him or her and pay for the drugs and walk away.

“You go to a public hospital and spend the whole day there, only to be told at the pharmacy that certain drugs are out of stock, and you start looking for where to buy the drugs. It is really sad,” she said.

Another patient at the Bwari hospital, Peace Daniel, said that after running a series of tests, she was diagnosed with toilet infection and the doctor prescribed drugs for her, but on getting to the pharmaceutical store, she was told that most of them were out of stock.

“I really felt bad because these are antibiotics. I am not sure of the ones I will buy at private pharmacies outside. I have the thinking that since government is the provider for social services like health, and is also the regulator in the health sector, it would always ensure that drugs at the government-run hospitals are authentic and more efficacious. But when you are buying outside, you don’t know what you are buying, whether authentic or counterfeit. Government has the responsibility to ensure that these services are rendered to the members of the public at public institutions,” she said.

However, Emmanuel Esther, a patient at the hospital said when her drugs were prescribed, she was able to get them in the pharmacy.

Aso Chronicle findings show that the general hospitals in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) receive drugs from the Central Medical Store, a department in the FCT Health and Human Service Secretariat.