-plans in the pipeline to further expand facility

By Navendra Seoraj

THE days of renting facilities to store medical drugs and equipment are coming to an end. At the commissioning of the extended Supply Chain Management Complex at Diamond, East Bank Demerara, Minister of Public Health, Volda Lawrence, said that the facility will be further expanded.

“We recognised that we need to make an investment, so we said why not have our own place by investing in a building where we can provide these services, since the renting of buildings has been a fiasco,” Minister Lawrence said, while making remarks at the ceremonial commissioning of the annex at Diamond on Friday.

After recognising the need to build capacity, government invested some $161M to ensure that there is additional space and capacity to store drugs and medical supplies.
The extended area is expected to reduce the number of “offsite locations” for the storage of supplies and drugs.

“As part of our commitment to SDGs, we have to take care of the wellbeing of our people and give consideration to bridging the gap of limited storage,” said Minister Lawrence, adding that the administration recognised that there is need to take a leading role in providing funding for the extension of the Materials Management Unit (MMU) of the ministry.

Speaking about the facility, the minister said the government now has a warehouse with greater storage capacity, which can increase the procurement of drugs and medical supplies, a move deemed intrinsic to the delivery of healthcare.

According to Minister Lawrence, the expansion of the facility is not only tied to government’s need to ensure proper storage at a primary location, but also because the

ministry has been expanding the medical services which are offered to citizens.
Over the past few years, every hospital has been able to have specialised services, which means that they also required additional supplies of medicine to fulfill the services offered.
In that regard, Minister Lawrence believes that the commissioning of the bond is an attestation of the government’s commitment to providing access to safe and quality medicine.

“Even as we expand, I trust that other regions will take seriously, the building of storage facilities within the regions so that they can also collect their quarterly supplies and store it in the regions so that distribution can be timely in the far-flung communities,” said the minister.

While making forward steps in terms of storage, government has already initiated talks of further expanding the MMU facility.
Minister Lawrence said the current expansion is just the first step for the MMU bond and in 2020; the aim is to get more funds to have additional space in order to meet all the necessary requirements.
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Health, Colette Adams, said the MMU facility was constructed in 2010 and commissioned in 2013,

She said the facility was the first state-of-the-art drug storage facility in the country. It occupied the space of 2,442 square metres and accommodated 1,493 pallets, 13 refrigerators and other items.
With the expansion, the facility now has 428.5 square metres of space and can accommodate a further 284 palettes.