-
Illustration photo shows various medicine pills in their original packaging.
The KwaZulu-Natal Health Department is investigating reports that patients are being turned away from some health facilities after being told that there is no medication.
MEC Nomagugu Simelane says the provincial depot normally keeps a three-month stockpile.
In cases which a clinic or hospital does not have an adequate supply of a particular medicine, they borrow this from other health facilities.
Addressing the media in Durban, Simelane advised patients to contact a call centre if they were turned away.
“As the Department of Health we then decided to start putting up posters and banners both in our facilities and on our social media to say, when you go and you are not given medication, please do not leave that facility. If they say to you there is no medication, we’ve got a 24-hour call centre to deal just with that.”
Meanwhile, Simelane says the department’s inability to pay suppliers does not mean that health facilities have run out of medicine. She says what is important is to engage suppliers over the payment period.
“As a Department of Health, we have been saying this from the start of the financial year, which is April 2024, the allocation that we have been provided as a province is not sufficient to run everything that we need to do. And it’s a call we have been making to both the premier, provincial treasury, national treasury and recently we spoke to the president about it, that the Department of Health in KwaZulu-Natal is not funded in a manner that it should and we are struggling.”
VIDEO | Shortage of medication in health facilities is not a problem unique to KwaZulu-Natal:
