DRUG SHORTAGE CRISIS IN SD

Sir,

I would like to commend the Government of Swaziland and the Ministry of Health for all efforts that they put in ensuring that the citizens of this country have access to health services. Yes there have been challenges which led to a shortage of drugs in most local hospitals but I do acknowledge that there have been efforts to improve.

As part of the ways of mitigating the challenge, government, through the Prime Minister’s Office, has set up a task team to establish the root causes medicine in the local hospitals ran out with a view to finding a lasting solution.

I do appreciate that our PM has taken action which shows what a good leader he is but I have a concern with the task team as I am wondering if there is a need for it especially because we know what the main causes of the drug shortage in the country were.

I may not be one who follows politics but having read articles in the local newspapers I can safely say that I know that the main issue has been the delays in the payment of the suppliers something which the Minister of Health admitted.

One does not need to be a professional or holder of a Masters Degree to know that when you do not pay suppliers on time they are bound to lose their trust in you and this would lead to them leaving you to deal with other clients.

So when we do not honour the agreements that are written on the contracts that we sign with the suppliers, it ruins the working relationship. Just like in any working environment, if workers go for days without being paid their salaries then the productivity will drop because they are no longer motivated.

So instead of appointing a task team, which will be paid huge sums of money I suppose for the job, I would have expected government to first sit down with the Treasury Department to find out the challenges when it comes to ensuring that payments reach suppliers on time.
Remember, we are talking about health here and this is a priority for government so there is a need to find solutions in a more professional way. My feeling is that what we have done is similar to setting up a task team to probe why it is cold these days when we know for a fact that it is because we are in the winter season!

Also may I request that government must learn to take action as soon as problems arise and not wait until things get worse. The problem of drug shortages has been there for quite sometime, why didn’t we take serious action then? Were we waiting for lives to be lost first so that we could see that the problem was a serious one?

Mcebo Matsenjwa
Mbabane

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