PAC Committee MPs Shocked as Auditor General’s December 2023 Report Reveals Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital Keeps Expired Drugs Together with the Unexpired Drugs.
In the December 2023 report, it was revealed that although Entebbe Hospital had expired drugs, these weren't recorded & had not been separated from the rest of the drugs, contrary to Section 8.2 of the Environmental and Social Management System (ESMS), that provides that expired items or drugs should not be part of the stock, they should be removed and out in the designated and as a general rule, any item expiring in three month’s time is short dated.
Namugga Gorreth, Vice Chairperson PAC called out the ugliness within Entebbe Hospital, wondering if the facility’s name should be changed to Entebbe Regional Poisoning Hospital, for the name to befit the current practices because the facility amidst all its challenges has failed to do the basic practices of separating expired drugs from the active drugs.
The Auditors noted that according to acceptable practices, the store officer should designate a separate part of the storeroom for damaged and expired goods and this area should be clearly labelled, & the officer should record all expired items in the register along with the price from the most recent invoice.
"You are here to save a life, to treat people, just imagine, somebody comes, goes to hospital and is given an expired drug. Because that is what the Auditor General said, that you risk to serve these expired drugs to patients. So you are here to save a life, but still poisoning a life. So you save and poison, and in essence, is that poisoning? So should we call you Entebbe Regional Poisoning Hospital? Because that is where we are heading. If you give expired drugs, then what are you there for?” said Namugga, Vice Chairperson, PAC.
"Maybe they keep those expired drugs for accountability because they aren’t recorded. You know what they do, they get the good drugs and take them to their clinics. Because if they are expired, why should they keep them in the same store with the drugs that are working? I am so surprised and embarrassed. What takes precedent? You said the store was small, why wouldn’t you put them somewhere? Why are you failing to separate them? That sends me to think that you wanted to smuggle them and that is a possibility because you have kept them there. It is very possible that you are giving people expired medicines, said Susan Amero (Amuria DWR).
"The auditors noted that the drugs which were expired & were mixed together with drugs which were not expired. You had a lot of time with the auditors, for us, we are just meeting you today, you should have taken time to understand the query, the query isn’t about the same room but rather mixing the drugs, the ones which were expired and those which were not. And worse of it, the expired drugs weren’t recorded which is very dangerous. Where drugs are together and you are dispensing these drugs, there is a risk and possibility that you will give expired drugs to the patient. So the explanation you are giving isn’t related to the query,” remarked Xavier Kyooma (Ibanda North).
"Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital, has a main store which is very small according to the capacity of medicine it receives from National Medical Store so what happens is that every month, we carry out a physical count of our stock and identify items that are about to expire and we isolate them from the main store. However the challenge is, we don’t have a separate room, so we just moblise within the hospital, a corner within the same store, because we couldn’t take them out where we keep these items. What was identified was that bot the usable stock and expired stock were in the same room, however, they weren’t together,” said Ismail Kizito Musoke, Pharmacists at Entebbe Hospital.
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