Abstract

STUDY ON ISSUES OF DRUG AVAILABILITY AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF IMPROVING THE AVAILABILITY IN HEALTH CARE INSTITUTIONS OF SRI LANKA

Jayasiri Wijayasiriwardhana*

Abstract

Access to essential drugs is vital to the good performance of the health care delivery system. Because of that it is very important to establish a proper system to manage regular supply of medicines to health care institutions. non-availability of drugs in public health care institutions affect negatively for the institution as well as for the customers (patients), Patients have to get those drugs from private pharmacies which leads to increase their out of pocket expenditure for health care. Institution also get bad impression of the population. Objective of this case study is to analyze causes for drug shortage a hospital level and make recommendations to ensure availability of drugs at each level. Issues related to; selection, estimate, ordering, procurement, storage, distribution and use of drugs and issues related to core management support system were the identified problems during the study. In order to improve the drug availability in institutions recommendations can be given as follows; each health care institution should prepare realistic drug estimate considering current year consumption, changes in prescribing patterns, future disease trends, budgetary allocation for drugs in each level etc. Establishment & regular meetings of Drug review committee which will help to improve the quality of annual drug estimate in each health care facility. Reliable and standard drug manufacturing companies should always be selected for awarding the tenders and capacity of the manufacturer, quality of drugs, and lead time for supplement of drug orders etc have to be considered in this process.

Keywords: Drugs, Improve, Availability, MSD.