Department of Health places Medical Depot and Pharmaceutical Managers on precautionary suspension
The North West Department of Health can confirm that four managers (2 from medical depot and 2 from provincial office) in Mahikeng have been put on precautionary suspension following alleged mismanagement involving expired medication and management of the Depot and staff while investigation continues.
The investigation will cover among others failure to disclose or report on the existence of the storage room that houses expired medication at the depot and failure to disclose or report on the availability of expired medication at the Depot.
The allegations leveled against the managers concerned include among others dereliction of duty in failing to make timeouts payments to service providers and alleged unfair labour practices.
Furthermore, the investigation will look into possible failure to set up systems for managing pharmaceutical services; failure to set up systems for timely payments to the pharmaceutical service providers and failure to correct disparities in salaries of the Depot staff despite staff members performing same responsibilities.
The purpose of the precautionary suspension is to make sure that the managers’ presence at work does not hinder the investigation. The concerned managers are therefore placed on precautionary suspension with immediate effect.
The Department is currently working on plans to avoid future occurrence of similar challenges at the medical depot. A system of reporting on disposal of expired medication and proper monitoring of stock levels is being implemented. As part of intervention by the Section 100 1b Administration, a Swat Team from NGOs who work in the area of pharmaceutical services has been brought in to attend to the weaknesses in this area.
A plan to improve delivery timelines and turnaround is in place. It involves direct deliveries of medication to hospitals while the medical depot will now deliver directly to clinics. Medicine availability in health facilities has increased substantially since the Administration took control of the Department.
Enquiries:
Tebogo Lekgethwane
Cell: 082 929 9958
