Members of Parliament from Commission F (Health, Education, Equality and Veteran Affairs) warned the Ministry of Health to immediately resolve the problem of lack of medicines in most of the country’s health facilities including at the national hospital HNGV in Dili.
The President of Commission F, Member of Parliament (MP) Virgilio da Costa Hornai, said the lack of medicines at the health facilities and hospitals will result in death.
MP Hornai added he was informed the SAMES (Autonomous Services for Medicines and Health Equipment) warehouse is currently empty of medicines.
“Commission F urgently calls on the Minister of Health and his Deputy to order the purchase of more medicines that can be airlifted to Timor because it will take too long by sea. We have money.”
He said this is a serious issue and the Ministry of Health needs to give this issue immediate attention because patients are being turned back and sent home because the national hospital does not have medicines.
Meanwhile SAMES Temporary Commission Director, Odete Maria Freitas Belo, said on its part SAMES cannot do anything to rectify this situation because the purchasing process is the sole competence of the Ministry of Health.
She added SAMES informed the Ministry of Health it was running low on stocks of medicines but the Ministry was late approving the purchase of additional stocks.
“We discussed the management of the supply of medicines should be done through a single order package and be based on the level of stocks available at SAMES and other information provided by the Ministry of Health about medicines needed, in particular the qualification of medicine, before medicines are purchased. But so far we have not been able to implement the single package system,” said Director Belo.
She added the government signed an agreement with company Kimia Farma in July 2013 and that SAMES so far has only received 11 containers, most of which contained only drip fluid, betadine antiseptic, and other consumables such as gloves.
The Director said according to the medicine stocks report the commission was given recently, the company was only able to deliver half of the ordered medicines.
Meanwhile the Deputy Minister of Health, Maria Pina da Costa, said lack of medicines at health centres is an issue of concern for the ministry but emergency purchases were done.
“The Ministry is not asleep or not doing anything about this situation. We have been doing emergency purchases,” said Deputy Minister da Costa.
She added currently there are 15 containers with medicines waiting to be shipped across to Timor-Leste from Surabaya in Indonesia and that her ministry has already requested the most important medicines to be sent across first by air-freight.
