The National Medical Stores (NMS) has revealed that it needs 298.5 billion shillings to be able to stock adequate drugs in hospitals across the country.
The revelation was made by Moses Kamabare (pictured), the General Manager at National Medical stores while appearing before Parliament’s Health Committee to present the budget framework paper of the institute for the next financial year.
Kamabare informed the committee that they need an extra 35.17 billion shillings to purchase malaria drugs, 13.2 billion shillings for TB medicines, 4.9 billion shillings to attain more coverage for immunization services.
He added that they also need 37.7 billion to buy mama kits and family planning drugs, 31 billion shillings for ARVS, saying that donors have already warned them that starting next financial year they will be scaling down on their funding.
The Mubende District Woman MP, Hope Grania Nakazibwe showed concern over the failure to stock anti-malarial drugs saying that this funding gap needs to be addressed.
The Jinja West MP Timothy Batuwa also called for prioritization of some medicines for diseases like Malaria.
Kamabare also wants government to increase funding to purchase essential medicine for health centers and hospitals saying National referral hospitals require an extra 7.8 billion, regional referral hospitals require 9.9 billion shillings, general hospitals require 21 billion shillings’ health center four require 12.8 billion, health center three require 23 billion while health center twos require an extra 16 billion shillings.
