Rundu hospital sends patients to pharmacies while medicine gathers dust in storeroom

Patients sent to buy own supplies

Patients at Rundu State Hospital are being told to buy medicine at private pharmacies, despite essential supplies sitting unused in the hospital storeroom.

They say they have to buy their own anaesthetics, malaria kits, and basics like bandages.

Following several patients complaining they are told the hospital has no medicine, The Namibian this week visited the facility’s storeroom – only to discover supplies being kept in boxes without being dispatched.

Among the items were malaria test kits.

Despite this, Rundu resident Jairus Johannes on Monday said he was told the hospital has no such kits.

“I brought my daughter to the hospital because she was not feeling well. She vomited and I suspected malaria,” he said.

Johannes said his child was attended to, but he was told there was no medicine available for her.

“I was advised to go and buy a malaria test kit at the pharmacy, since there were none at the hospital,” he said.
Johannes says he subsequently bought a kit and took it to the hospital.

Ministry of Health and Social Services spokesperson Walters Kamaya and Rundu State Hospital superintendent Theresia Shivera did not respond to questions on the situation this week.

EMERGENCIES ONLY

In addition, The Namibian last week reported that the hospital was only performing emergency operations due to a shortage of anaesthetics.

The ministry blamed this on poor coordination and monitoring between its different functional units in the region and the Central Medical Stores.

In a statement, it said this has resulted in orders not being delivered and distributed on time, despite sufficient stock being available countrywide.
However, executive director of health and social services Penda Ithindi on Monday said the ministry is not aware of the situation.

“I will find out on the ground to verify the level of stock and we will give the directive,” he said.

A patient who prefers to remain anonymous on Monday said he has had to buy dressing pads and a bandage himself.
“I came for my follow-up and to dress the wound. I was told dressing materials are out of stock. I decided to go buy gauze swabs and bandages myself,” he said.

He was told to return to the hospital for dressing on Tuesday, he said.

“I cannot wait for tomorrow, because the wound is open and it can be infected. That’s why I bought the dressing pads, which cost me N$31.70,” he said.

PHARMACISTS SPEAK OUT

A private pharmacist at Rundu, who spoke on condition of anonymity, this week said he has noticed an increase in state patients being referred to private pharmacies since April.

“We have been receiving 20 to 30 state patients per day since the beginning of April to buy medicine,” he said.

Another pharmacist said: “More state patients flock here on a daily basis, saying there’s no medicine and they are told to buy their own.

An elderly woman was referred this week to buy a rabies vaccine after her grandson was bitten by a dog. It was expensive.”
She said the woman could simply not afford it.

Kehemu resident Johannes Mpoko on Wednesday said his child fell from a tree and needed a specific ointment, which was not available at the hospital.

“I was referred to the Rundu State Hospital pharmacy, and was told there’s no medicine unless I buy it,” he said.
Meanwhile, the child was in pain, he said.

NO STATE CT SCAN

Sarafina Shifafure, a Tuhingireni resident, says she was forced to spend N$300 on medicine this week after her daughter complained of a headache, dizziness and vomiting.

“I had to go buy the medicine to stop my child from throwing up, because in the hospital there was nothing. They checked her blood and extracted fluid from her spine to check if there was any infection,” she says.

Shifafure says the fluid extraction was done five times for some reason.
This was later abandoned due to possible complications.

“I don’t have medical aid, so I asked them to refer the child to a Windhoek state hospital, but they did not do it,” she says.

Shifafure says her daughter was instead referred for a CT scan at a private facility in Windhoek, which will cost her N$28 000, since the machine at Rundu is out of order.

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