The Vice Chairperson for the Board of the Network of Journalists Living with HIV (JONEHA) Dr. Ben-son Tembo urged a stakeholders meeting that comprised representatives from various government departments and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to come up with interventions that would help address the country’s persistent drug stock outs in public health facilities.
“What brings us together today is a life and death challenge facing our health facilities…the problem “What brings us together today is a life and death challenge facing our health facilities…the problem of drug theft and pilferage which demands us to find a lasting solution that will ensure drugs are available in all our health facilities all the time,” said Dr. Tembo when he officially opened a one day consultative meeting on 25th February, 2022 in Salima. The meeting on Drug Theft and Pilferage was organized by JONEHA with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through AVAC under the COM-PASS Africa Initiative.
Dr. Tembo said it is quite dis-heartening when any one of the 18 million Malawians who are feeling unwell goes to a health facility with full of hope that they will get treatment after being diagnosed and prescribed with appropriate drugs; only to be told that the needed medicines are out of stock. He noted that in such a situation the recipients of care become frustrated and begin to lose hope and question the use of the facility in their area.
“What brings us together today is a life and death challenge facing our health facili-ties…the problem of drug theft and pilferage which de-mands us to find a lasting solution “
The Vice Chairperson ex-pressed optimism that the meeting would successfully arrive at solutions for drug stock outs caused by theft and pilfer-age in public health facilities. This he said was in view of the fact that the meeting was care-fully composed of a team of representatives from various relevant institutions mandated to provide quality health service to the Malawian population. He pointed out that the expressed expectations from the meeting did not mean undermining the difficulties the institutions were going through in making the drugs available, but it shows the confidence society has in the institutions based on their capacities to make a difference.
“So far as an institution; JONEHA has simply created a platform for you to link up with like-minded organizations to ad-dress the challenge. Surely you will agree with me that there is no problem without a solution… the solution is as per the old adage usually in the problem,” concluded the Vice Chair-person for JONEHA Board.
