The Ministry of Health officials made efforts to solve the multilateral and complex crisis of shortage of medicines in hospitals and health facilities. A local daily reported that the Ministry of Finance approved last week a request of the MoH to enhance the strategic stock of medicines and medical supplies, and by providing a budget with a total amount estimated at 230 million dinars.
The sources expected that this amount will be deposited in the ministry’s account during the current week or next week at the latest, explaining that the amount will be disbursed before the start of the new budget in early April 2023, provided that it is allocated to new requests for medicines and medical supplies, to fill any deficiencies. In addition, the MoH had faced a crisis during the past few days as a result of the scarcity of many types of medicines, as it began moving to find solutions to overcome the crisis, which received widespread criticism.
The ministry, the source revealed, has recently succeeded in providing types of eye drops and some medicines for diseases of the digestive system, nasal drops, medicines for asthma, diabetes, pressure and skin diseases, and a number of medicines and supplies that are used in major and minor surgeries and for patients in wards in public hospitals, as well as antibiotics in medical centers’ primary health care in the past week.
The Ministry issued a decision some time ago to amend the list of medicines accompanying the law on restricting the dispensing of some medicines to Kuwaiti patients and other specific categories of patients, as the number of these items reaches more than 370, in addition to completing the electronic link between the medical and drug dispensing file for patients in the pharmacies of 117 dispensaries. This came in addition to linking four public hospitals: Jaber Al-Ahmad, Mubarak Al-Kabeer, Al-Jahra, and Al-Farwaniya, to stop the wastage, control the process of dispensing medicines, and prevent the recurrence of dispensing them without any medical prescriptions, while the Ministry is working to complete the electronic link in other hospitals, and linking the dispensing of medicines between hospitals in the private and governmental health sectors.
Moreover, the sources pointed out that the pharmacies of health facilities are working to provide all kinds of medicines to patients, and according to what is delivered to them from the medical warehouse management on a regular basis, and that in the event that the medicine to be dispensed to the references is not available, there are treatment plans and alternatives that are dispensed by the specialist doctor, explaining that it is almost similarly effective and safe as the original drug.
Furthermore, 230 million dinars will be allocated to new requests for medicines, and to support the strategic drug stock, so that the stock of any drug whose available or low quantities are noticed in warehouses will be increased, for a period of up to more than 6 months to come. It also indicated the increase in the storage capacity of medical warehouses by providing storage spaces for medical warehouses in new hospitals, or studying a proposal to establish drug stores in each governorate, indicating that it may take a long time for the required documentary cycle.
In addition, the electronic linking of medical files and drug dispensing to auditors will contribute to reducing the amount of waste and dispensing and controlling medication significantly compared to recent years.
Five solutions were developed to avoid recurring drug shortages, which included localization of the pharmaceutical industry in the country, electronic link between pharmacies, expansion of drug stores and warehouses, increase in the budget allocated to medicine, and developing legislation to keep pace with developments.
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