P8-M medicine wasted in improper handling of facilities

MANILA, Philippines – Improper handling by government health facilities has resulted in more than P8 million worth of wasted or overstocked donated medicines, according to a report of the Commission on Audit (COA).

“Poor procurement planning, handling and monitoring and uncoordinated donations of drugs and medicines in a CHD (center for health development) and eight hospitals resulted in overstocked and expired/about to expire medicines totaling P4,250,313 and P4,108,873.19 respectively, as of December 31, 2007,” the COA report stated.

State auditors noted that under the rules, the stocks acquired through ordinary and emergency purchase should not exceed the three-month requirement.

Because medicines are considered as supplies with limited shelf lives, considering the life, necessity, past consumption data and the three-month requirements, state auditors said their procurement must be properly planned.

“The property office should accept only drugs and medicines with expiry dates of more than a year. The pharmacy section which is the ultimate custodian of merchandise inventory should observe the first-in first-out system of dispensing drugs and medicines to avoid expired items of their inventories,” it said.

However, this appeared not to be the case in some government health facilities as auditors found out that there were overstocked, expired and about-to-expire drugs and medicines.

State auditors noted several overstocked medicines worth P750,313 and expired or about-to-expire drugs worth P3,369,718.61 at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).

“Excessive stocks of drugs and medicines found at the RITM were traced to procurement dating back to calendar year (CY) 2003 to 2007, while excessive and unnecessary drugs and medicines donated by the Tropical Disease Foundation in CY 2006 were found expired in the pharmacy unit,” the report said.

There were also P106,348.25 worth of medicines that are expired and about to expire found at the Caraga Regional Hospital.

“We gathered that these drugs and medicines delivered by the DOH were more than what the hospital needs in a given period and were also slow-moving medicines. Our further inquiry disclosed that some physicians no longer prescribe these medicines,” COA said.

State auditors also found medicines already expired or about to expire worth P336,000 at the Rizal Medical Center; worth P122,739.58 at the Batanes Regional Hospital; P39,093.80 at the Southern Isabela General Hospital; worth P109,012.94 at the Paulino J. Garcia Memorial Research and Medical Center-Talavera Extension and worth P25,960.01 at the CHD for Zamboanga Peninsula.