Hospital drugs diverted and sold privately
Updated
RAAn investigation into Papua New Guinea's health department has revealed drugs meant for public hospitals are being diverted and sold off to individuals.
Presenter: Firmin Nanol
Speaker: PNG Health Secetary, Dr Clement Malau, Deputy opposition leader, Bart Philemon
PNG's Health minister, Sasa Zibe has ordered an investigation to find out why drugs are not reaching public hospitals.The investigation has implicated senior officers in PNG's Health Department's medical supply branch. It's alleged drugs are being sold to individuals, who on-sell them to pharmacies. Public hospitals then run out of vital drugs, denying people the right to basic health care.
PNG's Health Secretary Dr Clement Malau says the scam is like a can of worms, which must be uprooted. He alleges senior employees within the medical supply branch are involved.
MALAU: Apparently that seems to be the case, so we need to do something about it immediately. However, as I mentioned, it's like a cancer. Who knows people may have connections with people in the investigation team. So that's why I am saying we are investigating. There may be links somewhere that people say oh, we're going out now, we're going to need for these people to cover up everything.
From my own assessment, it's a web is a cancer, like a cancerous tissue going into all sorts of areas of the body.
NANOL: Public hospitals often refer patients to local pharmacies, when they run out of basic drugs. Dr Malau says there is no system to monitor who orders and supplies drugs. He says the department is planning to pay private companies to take over the job.
MALAU: We're looking at all the options for outsourcing, what we should outsource. As I said this thing had been going on for sometime, so we need to fix it up properly.
NANOL: So when you say outsourcing, meaning you could ask.....
MALAU: Like outsource for example, the logistic function from point a right out to the health centre, that would give mainly a private company to run, just deliver the drugs properly, properly packaged, following the right rules of drug delivery, we give them those guidance and they do that and we just monitor that. We just ensure that they get out there. They don't get out there, then we just strike the contract off, something like that.
NANOL: PNG's Deputy Opposition Leader has blamed the government for denying people basic health care. Bart Philemon says it should stop the scam.
PHILEMON: It is a reflection of a government that is deeply burying its head in the sand and hope that the problem will go away. The buck stops right at the ministers and the prime ministers. Repeatedly their problem of foul play in dispensing in medicine at the medical boxed and elsewhere and that particular specific issue with the Health Department, health is not reaching our people at all.
NANOL: An investigation has recommended police charge those involved.
PNG spends more than 24 million US dollars a year on drugs for its six million people. Firmin Nanol-Port Moresby
