SOME MEDICATION DELIVERED - HEALTH MINISTRY

MBABANE – The Ministry of Health has confirmed the arrival of some medication in the country which will be distributed to various public health facilities soon.

A series of articles had been published by this publication regarding the shortage of some medication in the different hospitals around the country. According to Minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi, the ministry has been, during the course of the week, receiving a number of medications which government had purchased from different countries. She said due to the slight delay on paying suppliers, the medication took time to be delivered. Nkosi mentioned that although she would not be able to reveal the list of the medication which had arrived, she could confirm that it included children’s vaccinations, intensive care and theatre medication and commodities, antiretroviral  treatment (ART),TB medication, a wide range of pain management medication, X-ray digital films, IV fluids and other essential measures.

Received

“They have just sent me a whole long list of medicines received this week. All I can say is that more medication will be delivered soon and we are trying to distribute them as quickly as we can. We have a whole load of children’s vaccines but not all of them. Some for intensive care and theatre, and commodities that go with them which include syringes, bandages and much more,” she said. Director of Health Services in the Ministry of Health Dr Vusi Magagula stated that the cause of the delay in receiving the medication was due to the late payments of the suppliers by government. He said as a ministry, they were happy that a lot of the medication had been received and more was still to come. “We have not received all the medication yet but soon, we will be receiving more. The reason there was a delay was because some of the suppliers were paid a bit later than we had anticipated. We will be distributing these to the different hospitals as soon as possible and the different health facilities will be alerted during the time of distribution,” he said.

Trust

Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) Secretary General Mayibongwe Masingane said they did not want to count their eggs until they hatched. He said this was because they did not trust government and until they had proof that the medication was indeed there and was being delivered to different hospitals in the country, they could not trust the ministry.
“Although we are happy about receiving of the medication, due to our previous experiences with government, we can only believe it when we see it. We have seen government give out statements just to calm down the public. We will only believe it when we actually see hospitals receiving the medication,”he said.  Masingane mentioned that for them to trust that the medication had really arrived, government needed to fast-track the delivering process to the hospitals as medicine shortage was an issue which needed a quick intervention.

“This is a serious issue which affects a lot of emaSwati and for that reason we are hoping that this is not a PR strategy from government as it would really be sad if that was the case,” he said. For many months, nurses have been petitioning government regarding the shortage of drugs. Patients were given prescriptions and told to source the drugs from pharmacies as there were none in public health facilities. Most patients shared their frustration about this state of affairs, in particular because the medication cost more when bought from private pharmacies.

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