Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE government through the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children has made some modifications on prescription forms used in public health facilities by adding some information which will help in tracking dispensed medicines.
The move will also help to seal leakages causing loss of medicines due to inefficiency and theft that resulted into loss of billions of shillings spent on buying drugs.
Chief Pharmacist in the ministry, Daudi Msasi said yesterday in Dar es Salaam that the changes in the prescription form will help to know consumers of health commodities and to get evidence of the medicines they had been given.
“Some information added on prescription forms include patient’s phone number, dispenser’s information (name and title), insurance scheme covering the patient or whether the medicines have been exempted,” he said.
The CP further explained that the prescription form will also have three copies, of which one will be for the prescriber, another one will go to the pharmacy and the third copy given to a patient.
He said that all health personnel, including prescribers and dispensers in all public health facilities are required to start using the new prescription form effective July 10 this year.
Msasi noted that the Pharmacy (Prescription Handling and Control) Regulations, 2020 emphasises on the use of prescription form and penalties for health personnel who will not abide by the regulations.
He directed health facilities to procure the prescription forms from the Medical Stores Department (MSD), noting that so far the department has printed 65,000,000 books, directing it to commence distribution so that they can be used as directed.
The CP further said that the recent medicine inspections conducted by the ministry at district council hospitals and regional referral hospitals exposed some shortfalls in 16 areas, which indicated poor management of health commodities in public facilities.
“The major shortfall was failure by health personnel to adhere to guidelines and use of important tools in keeping and dispensing health products in the country prepared by the ministry of health,” he said.
He said the guidelines include Standard Treatment Guideline (STG) which has identified medicines that are considered essential for treatment of common disease conditions in the country.
The guideline has also categorized medicines into different group to be used at different levels of health facilities, such as dispensary, district, regional and national hospitals.
“We insist health personnel to adhere to these guidelines to avoid causing inconveniences to patients, especially when they are prescribed with medical drugs which are not available at the respective health facility,” he said.
He said another guideline is the Medicines and Therapeutics Committee which provide guidance to managers at the health facilities in the country on procedures to be followed when they are in need of medical drugs and equipment.
“We have more than 18 guidelines which health personnel are required to adhere to so as to ensure provision of quality health care …we have also medical supplies management tools, such as prescription forms, bin card and issue vouchers which are also crucial in management of medical drugs and supplies,” he said.
