Basic medication absent at GPHC
Patients are being asked to purchase basic medications due to the shortage of critical drugs at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
These medications range from panadol, aspirin, and lanoxin injection to 70/30 insulin among other critical drugs.
According to reports, the hospital has been without these basic drugs for more than three weeks. It is unclear when these medications will be back in stock at the facility.
One woman said that she went to the hospital last Friday and the doctor prescribed pain medication for her, including panadol. She claimed that when she turned up at the pharmacy, she was informed that she had to purchase the tablet since it was out of stock.
“We are poor people going to the hospital and then we have to line up and wait only to be told that they don’t have panadol,” the woman lamented.
Another person called this newspaper and claimed that she has been going to the hospital to collect insulin but is being told to return at another time.
Kaieteur News was unable to make contact with the Public Health Minister, Dr. George Norton.
Norton, in the past had lambasted the then administrator of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) for drug shortages at the institution.
He claimed that the hospital was out of the basic and necessary drugs such as painkillers.
In one interview, Norton who was then the Head of the hospital’s Eye Clinic, said that there is a belief that only when the media gets involved then officials at the health institution tend to fulfill their mandate towards patients at the facility.
He related one instance where a baby was taken to the hospital from Corentyne, Berbice and needed antibiotics but none was available.
“Imagine, this baby came all the way from Berbice and couldn’t get antibiotics. What are we doing?” he had pointed out.
This newspaper was told that in 2014, the previous administration had dumped $84M in expired drugs while in 2015, the coalition government had to send back $600M in drugs from the Regions to the central government.
Last March, Cabinet granted no objection for medical supplies worth $136.5M.
The supplies were set to be acquired through the method of sole sourcing.
Also, on March 1, there was a tender for the supply of drugs under the national Tuberculosis (TB) programme. The highest bid was to the tune of $79M.
In addition, there were massive bids for pharmaceutical supplies, with the highest reaching $260M. This happened on April 5, last.