Botika ng Barangay in Region VII: COA: 109 Botikas don’t have permits
Health officials in
Aside from allowing the operations of these unlicensed drugstores, the Commission on Audit also found out that the government even provided seed capital to its operators in the form of drugs and medicine.
COA said to continue allow these unlicensed Botika ng Barangays to operate without the required Special License to Operate not only exposes the substantial amount of initial seed capital given to them to possibility of wastage, but also places the Department of Health in an embarrassing situation.
In other regions, some BNBs failed to survive due to stiff competition and the government has failed to recover the seed capital that was granted to its operators.
The state auditors explained that while the DOH is task to enforce the policy that only those licensed drugstores are allowed to operate, the health officials allegedly just closed their eyes and never compelled the BNB operators to secure the required permits.
The records showed that there are 167 BNB operators in
The operators of these unlicensed BNBs had been given enough time to secure the needed documents for them to legally operate their business, but have reportedly failed to do so.
In the whole Visayas,
COA said the BNB packages, such as seed capital, were supposed to have been granted only to duly licensed operators.
This prompted the COA to recommend that the health officials be made to explain and justify their inability to enforce the licensing requirement of said drugstore operators.
Botika ng Barangays offer the commonly used medicine such as those for colds and cough, hypertension and pulmonary diseases, anti-diarrhea, antibiotics and others.
A total of P75,492 worth of drugs and medicine were already useless when they expired while being stocked in some BNBs in different places of the region.
All over the country close to P1 million worth of drugs and medicine expired while in the custody of various BNBs.
The BNB operators claimed that they were not able to sell all the drugs and medicine that were supplied to them because the volume supplied was more than what was needed by the public in their respective localities, aside from the other factors like the fact that people prefer to buy the branded ones.
COA suggested that to prevent more expiration of BNB drugs and medicine in the hands of operators, the health officials should monitor the operations of the BNBs and they must ask guidance and assistance from the experts on how to successfully operate a drugstore.
While some BNBs sold their drugs and medicines cheaper compared to other drugstores, but there are some BNB operators whose products are much expensive because they bought their stocks from suppliers that are not accredited by the Department of Health whose prices are much higher.
Meanwhile, COA also learned another questionable activity in the procurement of reagents, supplies and consumables for hematology at the Eversley Childs Sanitarium in
It said that the products were directly purchased from a supplier based on “equipment-reagent tie-up agreement” without conducting public bidding, in violation of Republic Act 9184.
The hospital officials bought the reagents for hematology directly from SCR Ventures without making a canvass on the prices after they have entered an agreement with SCR Ventures to supply for the reagents and other hospital needs.
The only condition that convinced the ECS officials to enter into a direct purchase with the supplier is that the latter will lend laboratory equipment at the hospital for free of use for a period of three years.
But COA said the prices of the reagents maybe much higher that the regular prices in the market due top the recovery cost of the equipment which was added by the supplier to the cost of the reagents procured by the hospital.—(/NLQ)
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