IS THE DRUGS SHORTAGE REAL OR IMAGINED?

We are not given to fabricating stories.

We certainly would not stand on the floor of Parliament and lie shamelessly to the nation about such a drug shortage that has claimed so many innocent lives.

Neither would we go to Egypt to spend US$120million for drugs that can be bought through manufacturers and manufacturers agents here in Zambia. It does not make sense.

The ministry of Health last week issued a statement repudiating our story on the protest at Chilenje Level 1 Hospital. We are challenging the Ministry of Health to avail us access to the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) footage, covering the specific time and location we captured the story on the protest by patients at Chilenje clinic. We were at the hospital and we know what happened.

IT is astounding the lengths that some politicians will go to keep a false narrative going.

Is it strange to hear that patients and their care givers were protesting over the lack of drugs at Chilenje Level One hospital? How many patients have been sent home with prescriptions from that hospitals and as well as many other hospitals countrywide?

Discrediting a news story will not magically reverse the shoddy works that the ministry of Health has continued to churn out in their failure to stock hospitals and other health facilities with medicines.

We stand by our story of a protest at Chilenje Level One hospital over lack of medicines at the health institution.

Instead of wasting ink and paper to repudiate what is in the public domain, those officials at the Ministry of Health should expend their energies on ensuring that health institutions are stocked with all essential drugs and medical supplies.

Our concern is not to politic, but to carry out a mandate of informing and educating not only the general public but the people in positions of authority.

We would like to challenge the Ministry of Health to produce the drug stocks for the same hospital and indicate how much has been issued out to patients. This behavior of our leaders burying their heads in the sand and constantly pretending that all is well in the Health ministry, is not just shocking but very disappointing.

When members of the public speak to the media to register their disappointment, that too is a protest and for the ministry of Health to claim that the CCTV did not show any protest is laughable. The officials should know that a protest can take different forms but for now our concern is in ensuring that the people we advocate for, the millions of Zambians using public hospitals, are treated properly.

It is shameful to seize on this story to justify the ineptitude that has now become the surname of the ministry of Health.

The scandalous procuring system has resulted in medicine stockouts in nearly all hospitals. If this hospital has had a stock level of over 70 percent, then this is merely on paper because the reality on the ground is different. Any patient utilizing government hospitals including Chilenje Level One, has been subjected to going home without drugs. Those with the financial ability are able to procure the prescribed drugs from private pharmacies.

Our advice to the ministry of Health is to set their priorities right and stock hospitals with adequate drugs. There will be no need for stories when stocks are available because there will be no complaints or protests from patients.