1. Why do you think some areas on the heat map experience stock-outs more than others? Use examples from the heat map to explain your answer.
Areas like Johannesburg and Pretoria, Eastern Cape, and Limpopo had the highest number of stock-out reports. Gauteng has a large population and people from all over South Africa continue to migrate there, the ratio of people to available resources could cause a stock-out. For Eastern Cape and Limpopo there could be a mismanagement of funds that are needed to provide the necessary medicines to treat patients. KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, North-West, and Free-State have the second highest reports of stock-out, once again these places could have mismanagement of funds that are needed for the medicines that the community needs. Northern Cape and Western Cape have the least reports of stock-outs, for northern cape this could be because the province has the least number of people staying in the province so the demand is not that high and therefore, they can spread out whatever resources they have over a long period of time and for Western cape I have not theories, maybe the money is just spent better there and managed a little better. The order of highest to lowest population is Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North-West, Free State, and Northern Cape. So, looking at the heat map I would say that overall, the mismanagement of funds in the less populated areas is what causes the stock-out. The most private hospitals can be found in the in Gauteng and then Western Cape which means that the stock-out numbers are greatly reduced since people will turn to private healthcare to get the medicines they need. “South Africa boasts the highest standard of healthcare in Africa. There are over 200 private hospitals across the country; expats who take out private health insurance can expect the standard of care to be on par with their home country.” (Buswell 2014)
2. What do you see as some of the negative implications caused by stock-outs?
There is an increase in health inequity and financial strain in rural and underprivileged districts and provinces. People must utilise facilities that are far and require additional spending on transport and childminding services, combined with wage losses due to time taken off from work, can lead to indebtedness and a constrained ability to put food on the table and purchase other essentials. Health professionals are also forced to ration resources.
3. Using the Health Systems Building Blocks Framework, how can the different building blocks work together to prevent medicine stock-outs.
You may consider some of the following on the Stop Stock-outs Project:
❏ Who is leading this initiative?
❏ How is it funded?
❏ What services are provided by the project?
❏ Who is involved in running the project?
❏ What technologies are being used to address the main issue?
The initiative is led by a consortium of six civil society organisations. The SSP escalates this information to the National Department of Health, provincial structures and other stakeholders to strengthen supply chain management systems of PHC medicines and maximise access to health services. So, the National Department of Health, provincial structures and other stakeholders fund this initiative. This project is to make sure that stockout issues around South Africa don’t happen as often, or the problem is solved quickly. The consortium members run this project. The technology being involved is only surveys that take place online that can be accessed through any advice.
The project already involves community members and health care workers by relying on them to answer surveys so that the information needed to distribute resources is attained, for there to be more of an incentive for people to utilise what they have put in place they should pay health care workers extra and make it a side job for community members to do. Community members may be the biggest hurdle since there is since marginal communities are also less likely to speak up for their right to a consistent supply of essential PHC medicines, and other services. Technology to monitor the medicines which health professional can use to scan items when they are being taken and stocked would also be a good idea because it removes the problem of people being demotivated, due to lack of service delivery, and this technology would be connected to a system where they can access the information whenever needed.
Public health should also carry out more community diagnosis. If a disease keeps increasing in a community then the community noticeably need more health resources related to the disease to tackle the problem.
References:
Devex, 2016. Ending drug stock-outs, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVYiUEVLU1kLinks to an external site. (Last accessed: 01 November 2022).
Stop Stock-outs, 2019. Stock-outs.org. Available at: https://stockouts.org/Links to an external site. (Last accessed: 01 November 2022).
Greg Nicholson, 2013. Daily Maverick. Available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-06-19-eastern-capes-mthatha-problem/Links to an external site. (Last accessed: 01 November 2022).
I have attached the Word Document incase the typography does not show well.
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