Pill check in Livingstone
On 22nd July, 2009 the Zambia country team Casco Mubanga From NZP+ Lusaka, Banza Chela from TALC Lusaka Hub and Claudio Midolo an Open Society Insitute fellow from New York City, visited the tourist capital Livingstone in southern province. The purpose of the trip was to a carryout a check on availability of essential medicines in the district , holding a focus group discussion as part of awareness of the essential medicine concept and the campaign, to carryout three interviews one with a pharmacist, a nurse and also with a patient who had experienced the stock-out.
Day one
Interview with Vivian, the district pharmacist
On the first day the team had a privilege of interview a district pharmacist. During the interview it came from the pharmacist that delivery are received from the central medical stores once in a month and there were no problems of stock outs in the district, all the requested drugs are received in the deliveries. The major challenge faced by the district pharmacy was transport to distribute medicines received to all the health facilities in the district. The lack of transport caused a lot of delays in delivery of medicines.
Interview with a Nurse Anne
This was very interesting interview, we were happy that our Nurse brought a lot of issues which really affect them, in the interview it came out that the problem of stock outs is a really problem in the public health facilities. Anne said a lot of essential medicines requested from the district pharmacy are not received ,they only received what packed from there not what they requested for, sometime they even receive drugs that have no use in their clinic like now they have a lot of drugs just packed for Buazare which they never request for. There also a great shortage of ARVs for PMTCT for women at the clinic and a serious shortage of septrin for people living with HIV. It also came out that some of the essential medicines such amoxicillin suspension are no longer stocked in clinics. Anne recommended that the old system where a pharmacist from the district following medicines and witnesses the packing of the drugs at medical stores was far much better than comparing to the new system where medical store delivery the medicines which usually have very essential medicines not included in the kits. It was also observed that the system used for ART program in clinic is very good and this system if adopted availability of essential medicines in public clinics can improve a lot.
Interview with Ida
Another interview was done with a grandmother who had taken the grandson for treatment to Libuyu clinic in Livingstone and they had experienced a stock out of amoxicillin suspension. Ida is a widow who stays in Libuyu looking after a grandchild, Ida said they went to the clinic seeking treatment and was only given a prescription of amoxicillin suspension of which she could not afford to buy the medicine. Ida said that recently there has been lack of access to medicines unlike in the old government were medicines were available in clinics.
Day two
On the next day a radio Talks show was held on Radio MOSI-O-TUNYA community Radio station which cover most parts of the province.
The panel was made up by Casco Mubanga a and Banza Chela both from the stop stock-outs country team members from Lusaka, Lloyd Bwalya the NZP+ Livingstone Coordinator while Claudio Midolo captured the event with photos and a video recording.
The Presenter Mr. Mwale asked Casco to give a background of the essential medicines concept, it was explained that the essential medicine concept was adopted by WHO member state 30 years ago which include Zambia, casco went into detail to explaining the whole concept, Mr. Banza explained the stop stock-outs campaign and the consequences of stock outs in patients while Lloyd Bwalya explained how they participated in the exit patient interviews called SMS check campaign.
In conclusion there serious stock outs of essential medicines in Livingstone and the province, programs such as PMTCT have been affected because of short supplies of some combinations of ARVs in most clinics in Livingstone. The list of stock outs include amoxicillin suspension for children, first line ARVs, Zinc 20mg tablet for children with Diarrhea others are benzathine Penicillin to mention a few.
