GWERU - The Gweru Provincial Hospital has applied for permission from the Health and Child Welfare Ministry to destroy tonnes of expired drugs as it has run out of space to stock new ones.“We are in the middle of securing approval from the government for us to dispose of the expired drugs and we have initiated communication with the relevant ministry, said Acting Medical Superintendent Dr Fabian Mashingaidze.
We have looked for and already found a partner to assist us with labour for the selection of the drugs that need to be disposed of.
He said the main challenge of the hospital now was finding space to store new supplies of drugs as the expired ones were taking much of the storage space.
However, the Medical Superintendent said the supply of new stock of drugs had drastically improved, although the hospital was failing to meet demand for ARVs used to treat HIV patients as thousands were on the waiting list.
“We are doing fairly well with patients on ARVs but the demand is still increasing. We now have well over 2 000 patients accessing their ARVs from the provincial hospital and this is the biggest number of patients that we are attending to at the moment. This needs more staff and a deliberate shift of focus for the procurement and sourcing of ARVs,” he said.
Post published in: News