Paulina Quintao – The National Director of Autonomous Service for Medicines and Medical Equipment (SAMES), Odete Maria Belo said it has run out of some medicines because it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Health to inform SAMES when it is running out of medicines and to tender for new stock given that SAMES is only responsible for disbursing medicines.
Despite not stating which medicines are out of stock, Director Belo confirmed that some key medicines are out of stock and that a report was submitted to the Ministry to purchase.
"Our duty is to distribute medicines based on requests received. In terms of the items out of stock, we have already informed the Ministry," said Director Belo in Dili.
She added that according to 2014's performance indicators outlined by the Ministry of Health, medicine stock cannot be lower than 15% nevertheless, it is also important for the ministry to have contingency funds to attend to emergency requests from the health facilities.
Meanwhile the National Director for Hospital Services at the Ministry of Health Horacio Sarmento said the medicine and consumables tenderization process has been working but the delays are due to an assessment being conducted by the National Procurement Commission.
"We will allocate $5,000 to health facilities to be able to purchase their own medicines in the meantime but another problem is that some of the medicines are not available in the private pharmacies across Dili," said Director Sarmento.
He added currently three tenders have been issues, the first to purchase medicines, another to purchase laboratory reagents, and the other one to purchase a blood transfusion machine. The tender for the purchase of medicines is still being assessed by the National Procurement Commission due to the large sums of budget requested.
Dr. Sarmento also said that in 2014 the Ministry of Health awarded the contract for the purchase of medicines to company Kimia Farma Indonesia and the contract ran out in May 2015.