When was the last time you were given a doctors prescription only to find out that the medication is not available at the public health facilities and you simply can’t afford it at any of the private pharmacies? It happens, quite a lot, far too often for those in need, and today the Ministry of Health is making sure that the next procurement of free medicines they offer to you is not only in supply but are of the highest quality. Equally important that the entire procedure is conducted in a fair and open manner.
The process started last October when doctors and other health care providers met to review and come up with the list of drugs that will be made available to you from government medical centers across the country. The medicines and other pharmaceutical supplies have been selected and now the Ministry of Health is in the process of deciding who will be given the contract to supply the products.
In the past, contract awards have been widely criticized, with observers alleging bias in the way the contracts are awarded. This year however the Ministry of Health is ensuring transparency and accountability in the way it conducts the annual tender process. According to technical advisor and chief pharmacist Sharon Anderson she does not believe that any of the suppliers who put in bids should feel that their application was not properly reviewed.
In an effort to demonstrate just how transparent the process is, today those bids received for 2008 were officially and publicly opened. The awards will be announced later, but the press conference was held today – and Anderson told us, the “scenery” is all about quality delivered to the end user, and that would be you.
Sharon Anderson, Chief Pharmacist
“To ensure that the medication that we offer to our people are safe, of good quality and is cost effective. So we put an offer in the newspapers for people to bid, they did their bid, submitted it today and as a result we are now acknowledging the receipt of those bids publicly. Nobody can say that I put in a bid and it was not assessed. It is medicine and related pharmaceutical supplies, gloves, everything that we use for the hospital was in the bid.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
And how many distributors are there?
Sharon Anderson,
“Well when the offer was made in the newspapers we had forty five people who actually came and purchased the bid document and up to the closing time yesterday we had thirty that returned their bids. So we have thirty potential suppliers that will be made available to procure on behalf of the Ministry. Another segment of this open tender is that they must store and distribute. What do we mean by that to house the medication for us and deliver it to the respective facilities for us. It is a way for us getting out of the warehousing concept.
At present we have our central warehouse but the challenges that we have had in managing that has been numerous okay because there are times you are aware that we are out of medication and all of that. So we are hoping that through the concept of the health reform where they promote the public private sector partnership, we are hoping that by merging and doing business we will be able to improve on the efficiency and the effectiveness of our supply management system.”
A committee has been selected to evaluate the bids which will be chosen based on quality, the delivery time and costing.
