By Patson Chilemba
Resident Doctors Association of Zambia (RDAZ) president Dr Brian Sampa says Health minister Sylvia Masebo has dismally failed and her remaining at MoH is already denting the UPND administration.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Dr Sampa said it was ignorance on the part of Masebo to instruct health institutions to purchase drugs individually, saying that was something he has always advised against.
He said Masebo was supposed to be oriented about health issues and how they operate at MoH as that Ministry did not operate in a manner where hospitals should buy drugs individually, adding that the money they received as grants was not even enough to purchase drugs.
Dr Sampa said for instance, there is a hospital in Lusaka which handles a population of more than 200,000 people and only receives around K114,000, monthly, with K70,000 from that amount used on fuel, cleaning materials, allowances and other undertakings, which he said was not enough.
He said from the same K114,000 allocation, the hospital was required to use only 30 percent of the amount which was supposed to be used for emergency drugs, wondering what sort of drugs could even be purchased from the same amount.
“So it shows that the minister does not understand how the health system operates. And that is dangerous because she keeps on blaming it on the hospitals that we have given you money but you are not buying drugs, because she doesn’t understand who is supposed to buy drugs and what is the channel. It’s a disservice actually for the nation to have such a minister at the Ministry of Health,” Dr Sampa said.
He said the Ministry needed someone who understands its operations as the drugs were purchased through ZAMMSA.
“To be honest with you, the minister has failed dismally. And there is no hope if this minister continues at the helm of the Ministry of Health that things are going to change,” Dr Sampa said. “If this minister is not changed, you know the Ministry of Health is a very sensitive Ministry and it borders on national security, it will dent the entire image of the government. It has already started doing so.”
On the recruitment process of health personnel, Dr Sampa said he was very disappointed because when the permanent secretary was asked, he mentioned the stakeholders in the recruit process as being the Church, traditional leaders and constituencies.
“Now how can a traditional leader be a stakeholder in employment? How can the Church be a stakeholder in employment?” Dr Sampa asked, saying this married into sentiments by “that other minister” who said that he did not know the people who had applied in his constituency. He said the moment someone mentioned such things, it meant that the whole exercise had now become political.
He said any involvement of traditional leaders would just induce regionalism in the whole process because it was rare that traditional leaders would recommend people from the other regions.
He said the Church, traditional leaders and constituencies were not even there when framework for recruitment was happening.
“And this is just because they are trying to buy time. They are trying to buy time because it’s either there is no money or there is something else they are not telling us. But mostly likely it could be because there is no money,” Dr Sampa said, calling that as something he was not going to buy because money was being found for other activities.
He said he was privileged to have been trained at the University of Zambia (UTH) and that the entire time he was at UTH, he used to do practicals there and there were always drugs, cannulas, syringes and other materials, and they could see those things as students.
He said when he completed his schooling in 2018, those things were still there and even when he was deployed to Chinsali in 2019.
“We never had to send someone to go buy drugs, to go and buy IV fluids, never! There were times when yes, there could be a shortage of some drugs but after a day or two those drugs will be there. It was just a matter of ordering,” Dr Sampa said, and that even last January when he was working things were still okay.
But he said for the past 10 months everything has deteriorated so badly where there was now nothing in the hospitals, as things have gotten worse and that the back stops at government to raise their game “because when we compare we are supposed to see better things now. Not to see the worst case scenarios now.”
Dr Sampa said the reason behind the whole problem was the suspension of procurements, arguing that when the UPND came into office they allocated a lot of funding towards purchasing drugs, as never before has Zambia witnessed an allocation of K3.3 billion just for procurement of drugs and medical supplies. But despite that there has been no procurement because they “suspended people they suspected of having been working with the former administration.”
But Dr Sampa said that was a bad move, which he said was killing MoH, that whoever was supplying medical supplies was suspected of being linked to the former government, which he said came at the expense of people’s lives.
“Just let those people who are able to supply be able to supply because Zambia is limited in terms of who can supply drugs. So if we suspend those who were supplying, it means we have suspended the entire group of people who can supply because those are the only people who had the capacity,” said Dr Sampa. “So they are trying to establish new people to supply, that is what is causing this problem because the money is there and money has always been within.”
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