Provinces run out of contraceptive stock
INVESTIGATIONS conducted by the Stop Stockouts Project (SSP) reveal that health facilities across Gauteng, Mpumalanga, North West, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape have reported ongoing stock outs of contraception medications, including Nur-isterate, Ovral, Triphasil and Depo Provera.
To avert further erosion of the right to sexual reproductive health, the SSP is calling on the National Department of Health (NDoH) to review the supply chain management and distribution procedures of contraceptives and produce a comprehensive remediation plan that prioritises contracts with reliable suppliers who can ensure an uninterrupted supply of contraceptives to facilities.
“Health facilities in affected provinces are increasingly reporting stock outs of more than one kind of contraception,” says Dr Indira Govender of Rural Doctors Association of Southern Africa, an SSP consortium member.
“Depo Provera is the most widely used and easy to administer contraceptive in public facilities across South Africa, and the ongoing stock outs leave many women who depend on it at a loss, without alternatives.”
SSP says they raised the alarm over contraceptives stock outs in 2018, yet the problem persists.
“The impact of a lack of access to contraceptives places women at increased risk of unwanted pregnancy, economic stress and compromises their psychological wellbeing. All of which undermines reproductive and contraceptive health rights,” explains Govender.
In North West Province, SSP partner organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) has been supplying the Department of Health with a limited quantity of intra-uterine devices and emergency contraceptives, but this is not a sustainable intervention.
Ultimately, the responsibility to procure medications remains the duty of the provincial and national health departments.
SSP is calling for the development of a standard referral guideline to be circulated to health facilities that describes how clinical staff must handle stock outs and advise women who are unable to access the contraceptive of their choice at the initial point of service.