Accessibility to drugs project launched

Islamabad : The District Public Health Supply Chain System Strengthening Initiative was launched here Wednesday amid aspirations to ensure the availability of medicines to men, women and children at the grassroots in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

A joint venture of the KP Government and USAID-funded Global Health Supply Chain-Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project, the initiative will initially be piloted in four districts namely, Charsadda, Swat, Buner and Lakki Marwat, and will subsequently be replicated in the rest of the province. District-based interventions will primarily focus on addressing supply chain related deficiencies that are responsible for non-availability of quality drugs at different tiers of healthcare.

The ceremony had the Health Minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Dr. Hisham Inamullah Khan as the chief guest. Parliamentarians from National and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assemblies, Secretaries, Director Generals and senior officials from the provincial Health and Population Welfare Departments, senior members of district management, development partners, donors, members of civil society organizations (CSOs) and media also attended.

Having launched the initiative and the HR Management application, Hisham lauded the efforts of USAID and the PSM project for repairing and integrating the fragmented supply chain ecology at the provincial level. He expressed confidence in the expected outcomes of these interventions, which are aimed at integrated, transparent and client-friendly systems at all levels of healthcare continuum. He emphasised that these reforms are critical to accomplishing the ambitious health agenda of Universal Coverage by targeting all tiers of health infrastructure; implementation of drug and device information system at DHQ and THQ levels in line with the system being implemented in tertiary care hospitals of Islamabad; design, development and deployment of district integrated supply chain system which are scalable, sustainable and cost- effective; data visibility through rich visualization optics; use of data for evidence-based decision-making, and human resource capacity building.

Hisham also alluded to the project’s collaboration with KP Government in working to leverage technology for standardization of doctors’ database and addressing grievances pertaining to health services through ‘Grievances Management System.’

The senior management of the PSM project shared the strategic vision to connect marginalized and most underserved communities with health commodities by bridging public policy, technology, service delivery infrastructures, and systems related gaps. He expressed delight at the inter-provincial representation of public-sector stakeholders from both Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, “which is a recognition of appetite for cross-provincial strategic collaborations to solve key public health supply chain related challenges through experience sharing.”

Provincial Secretaries Health and Population Welfare Departments also shared their accomplishments and stressed the need to be amenable and receptive to the added responsibilities that the approaching times herald for the public health system.