Members of Parliament on the Health Committee have pledged to raise concerns affecting the National Medical Stores (NMS) in Parliament, including the need to expand storage capacity as demand for medicines and health supplies continues to grow.
The commitment was made during an oversight visit to NMS, where members of the committee toured the facility and received an update on its operations, emergency response capacity and engagement with government health facilities.
The committee, led by its chairman, Dr. Julius Monday, said the visit was intended to give the legislators a first-hand understanding of NMS operations and identify issues requiring parliamentary action.
The chairman said the committee wants to be “action-oriented” and intends to visit NMS frequently to follow up on issues affecting the organisation and the health sector. He said the growing demand for medical supplies and the availability of land at NMS provide an opportunity for expansion.
“Now that you have raised a very important issue of the growing demand and the need for expansion and now that there is land, these are the issues we want to raise in Parliament so that we can support,” he said.
The committee said NMS plays a critical role in Uganda’s health sector and that Parliament’s oversight responsibility includes ensuring that public resources allocated to the health sector are put to good use.
The MPs said they wanted to assess the functionality of the warehouses, the state of infrastructure and staff welfare, among other issues, in order to support increased productivity at NMS.
The need for additional warehouse space was also highlighted during the visit. NMS currently operates warehouses at Kajjansi and Entebbe, with the Kajjansi facility described as significantly larger than the Entebbe warehouse.
NMS General Manager, Mr. Moses Kamabare, said the organisation has space that could be used to establish another warehouse to respond to increasing public demand. He said the two modern warehouses at Kajjansi and Entebbe make it easy to process emergency orders within 24 hours.
“NMS has a system that enables us to process emergency orders in 24 hours,” the General Manager said, adding that the organisation also interacts with government health facilities individually through routine deliveries, which are made at least six times a year, as well as through customer service staff.
During the visit, the committee also raised concerns about the availability and handling of medicines in health facilities. Dr. Monday said President Museveni had recently raised concerns about shortages of medical supplies in health facilities and questioned whether the shortages were caused by limited supplies, low availability or diversion of medicines.
The committee further reported concerns from recent visits to health facilities where some medicines were allegedly not labelled “GOV”, raising the risk of the medicines finding their way into private facilities.
“We are here to tell us why this is like that,” the chairman said, urging NMS to provide explanations and ensure that government medicines are properly labelled.
The committee also identified absenteeism among health workers as another concern, saying the absence of some staff leaves the available workers overstretched and contributes to burnout.
Dr. Monday said the committee was also concerned about the increasing number of chronic diseases, including cancer, and wanted information and figures that could help Parliament respond to the growing burden of non-communicable diseases.
“We are here for answers so that we take action,” he said.
In his remarks, Paul Okware, the Chief Stores and Operations Officer, said the organisation is now undertaking its plan to reduce operational costs, including the use of a solar-powered system covering part of its facilities.
Besides the warehouse, the MPs also toured the Ebola Supply Chain Coordination Centre, which supports the country’s response to emergencies, as well as the NMS Resource Centre.
Mr. Kamabare welcomed the committee’s visit, saying the organisation was pleased to receive the new members of Parliament and benefit from their guidance.
“On behalf of NMS, we are glad to have you here today. This is the first visit we are getting from you, new members of Parliament, to come and guide us because you see things we are unable to see,” he said.
He said the visit would help them better understand NMS operations and enable them to make objective observations and recommendations.
Meanwhile, the committee said it would use information gathered from the visit to inform its oversight work and raise relevant issues in Parliament in support of the health sector.