HABARI NZITO YA HIVI PUNDE: RAIS MAGUFULI AWA MBOGO ACHUKIZWA VIKALI NA RIPOTI HII MBOVU AFUNGUKA MAZITO JUU YA WIZARA HII NYETI KWA TAIFA..

This comes following revelations that a key reason for why the nation is running low on some important drugs is the government’s failure to "consistently commit sufficient financial resources to meet the country’s essential health commodities requirement. 
” Sikika, a local health advocacy non-profit organisation (NGO), said in a statement yesterday that the government has allocated just 44 per cent of the funds needed for purchasing medicines in the current fiscal year 2016/17.
"The currently calculated requirement for essential health commodities stands at 577 billion/-, but the amount allocated for this financial year is 251 billion/-," Sikika executive director Irenei Kiria said in the statement. "Out of (the allocated funds), 108 billion/- is earmarked for repayments of previous debts owed to the state-run Medical Stores Department (MSD)," Kiria added.
The Minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, the Elderly and Children, Ummy Mwalimu, announced in August that the government has hiked its budget for medicine purchases from 41bn/- in fiscal year 2014/15 to 251bn/- in the current financial year, an increase of over 600 per cent.
But health sector analysts say that despite the substantial increase, the financial allocation is still woefully inadequate to meet the actual demand in a country with a population of over 47 million people.
According to Kiria, urgent action is needed at the highest levels of government to address the crippling drugs shortage that has hit scores of public hospitals and health centres across the country. "We request the president’s office to direct sufficient funds to resolve the chronic medicine crisis.
This should include clearance of MSD debt," the Sikika boss said. Among recommendations made by the health advocacy group to the government is to transform MSD into a fully-independent parastatal that will compete with private wholesalers of medicines. Said Kiria:
"The mandatory central purchase of health commodities by public health facilities through MSD should be abolished and a full decentralized system be allowed to flourish." "All funds allocated centrally for the purchase of medicines should be sent directly to district councils or health facilities.
" He urged the President's Office unit responsible for regional and local government matters to focus on strengthening the capacity of public health facilities to manage their own affairs while the health ministry regulates the quality of medicines and other health commodities and institutes a price control mechanism.
Kiria was critical of the response of both the health ministry and MSD to the problem at hand, saying government authorities have so far "only served to downplay the seriousness of the situation.
" "Considering that the information about the shortage was obtained from the MSD’s own website, one would have expected an honest and technical response," the Sikika executive director said.
"For the president (Magufuli) and Ministry of Finance to help, they would need to know the magnitude of the problem and how it has been caused over the years, including suggestions to effectively resolve it for the benefit of the citizens," he added.
He suggested that the health ministry and MSD have sought to divert attention away from the real problem. "MSD’s website displayed zero stock of 47 per cent of all medical items as per their medicine catalogue.
Amongst these are key important health commodities that contribute significantly to important health outcomes, such as delivery kits, ORS+Zinc, anti-hypertensives and vaccines that are essential for prevention of ailments such as yellow fever, measles and rabies," he noted.
Far from being a recent phenomenon, drug shortages in the country’s public hospitals is a persistent problem that has now reached a “critical level,” Kiria said, adding that some health facilities have gone longer than three months without essential vaccines.
"Shortages at MSD directly affect the availability of essential health commodities at all public health facilities as the current system requires that facilities have to first source the items from MSD before trying elsewhere," he further noted.
"In addition, a significant proportion of the health facility medicines budget is usually deposited at MSD, and (public health facilities) cannot withdraw the funds in cases of stock outs at MSD," he said.
A study conducted by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and Twaweza (a local NGO) in 2013 also showed that shortages of essential medicines in public health facilities have been a persistent problem in Tanzania despite increasing efforts to address it.
The ODI-Twaweza research titled ‘Stock-outs of essential medicines in Tanzania’ found that perennial drug shortages in the country were the result of not only resource constraints and technical problems, but also a series of political logics that allow and reinforce short-term policy making, weak oversight and a lack of meaningful accountability.
A Twaweza survey conducted in 2013 also uncovered that 41 per cent of patients were not able to get the medicines they needed directly from a public health facility.
"The key to solving Tanzania's chronic stock-out problem is less likely to lie with any particular set of solutions, but more with creating the conditions under which a coalition of actors can work together on these issues,” the survey findings report said.