Minister 'presents' expired drugs to hospital

In spite of the hype preceding the presentation of some drugs to the Ministry of Health at Kpone in the Greater Accra Region, this paper is reliably informed that most of the drugs were expired and unsuited for its purposes.

The presentation of the drugs by the philanthropist which took place in the presence of reporters from the Daily Searchlight to the Kpone Health Center, was on behalf of the Greater Accra Regional Minster, Hon. Afotey Agbo.

According to the philanthropists, the items presented to the Health Center cost about $50, 000. But according to some people present at the ceremony, it was very appalling for a whole minister to lead people to present expired drugs for people to use.

Some of the items presented to the Kpone Health Center were, used clutches, used surgery equipment, cotton, Alendronate sodium which will expire in September 2012.

Even more so, when it was made clear to this paper from our source that there was still a large quantity of expired stock on hand pending processing and destruction.

The nurses told this paper that there have been instances in the past where patients attending this country's public hospitals and Health centers were told that certain drugs for which doctors had written prescriptions were not available and would have to be purchased at private pharmacies.

Daily Searchlight Newspaper can say on authority that the senior nurse in-charge of administration at Kpone Health Center was not happy to receive the expired drugs and the used equipment from the philanthropist but according to our information her hand is tied up as the Minister insisted they should receive the drugs.

Some of the nurses who spoke to this reporter on condition of anonymity said this issue must be thoroughly investigated by the Ghana Health Service as to whether these expired drugs were purchased or gifted and what efforts were made to send them to the public hospitals and health centers so they cold be utilized.

It would also be interesting to discover exactly what the ministry of health is doing to investigate this so-called philanthropist who always presents medicine and medical equipment to hospitals and also their procurement process.

Our inside source hinted us that the medicines will be distributed by the health center free of charge mainly to poor people.

These had been purchased directly from a health charity international health partners in an agreement facilitated by the regional minister office.

“The total number of people who may be at risk after taking this expired medicine from the health center may be as high as 46,000” according to one health officer who pleaded for condition of anonymity at Kpone Health Center.

The source said this is the time the computerization of the inventory will make sense, also it will only work if the humans whose task it is to enter the data do their jobs well.