20 Mar 2018

Central Medical Stores (CMS) is giving priority to medicines for critical illness by ensuring that at all times two or more medicines used in these conditions are in store.

Assistant Minister of Health and Wellness, Mr Dikgang Makgalemele said ‘this makes it possible for health workers to prescribe and use alternative medicines, where one is not available,’ adding that his ministry had given health facilities funds to procure from the private market the out-of-stock items at CMS.

Mr Makgalemele further told Parliament on Monday that he was aware of the critical shortage of medical cards in the country, stating that to address the situation the ministry procured the cards forms in November and deliveries to facilities were ongoing.

He added that going forward the ministry would use savings within the health budget to meet the demand and partner with some of stakeholders such as Botswana Defence Force to meet some of the costs.

Further, he noted that reasons for recurrence of the shortages were due to some internal inefficiencies, which were currently being addressed, noting that late deliveries by some suppliers and failure to deliver sufficient quantities as ordered by CMS was adding to the situation.

“The ministry requires close to P10 million to print patients cards, laboratory forms, obstetric record and drug forms. 

However, due to budgetary constraints we only have warranted amount of P500 000,” he said.

That meant that the ministry had to wait until savings were enough to print, adding that, such was compounded by the fact that 70 per cent of patients return to medical facilities without patient’s cards. He did not deny that there was shortage of medical forms in clinics in Kanye.

The assistant minister was responding to a question by Member of Parliament for Kanye South, Mr Abram Kesupile, who wanted to know if the minister was aware that patients were growing weary of the frequent shortage of medication and medical cards in Kanye clinics.

Mr Kesupile also wanted to know what the minister was doing to address the situation and why the shortages occurred frequently. ENDS