Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony says that his ministry is awaiting the final report on several audits which uncovered billions of dollars in expired medicines and medical supplies that inundated the warehouses of the Material Management Unit (MMU) and the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GHPC). That report, he said, will entail findings and recommendations, and whoever has to be held accountable for this major lapse, will face the consequences.
During a press conference yesterday, the Minister disclosed that close to $1B of expired medicines had to be dumped between August and September last year. Between October 2020 and March of this year, another billion dollars worth of expired items also had to be thrown away. More than 300 truckloads of expired medicine had to be disposed of during those five months. Also, an additional $1B in expired medication was discovered in the GPHC bond.
Dr Anthony revealed that from 2015, close to $10B worth of medicines had to be discarded.
“Based on the final report that we’ll get, I’m sure there will be recommendations that will be made to us, and we’ll utilize those recommendations. We’ll involve the necessary agencies and turn those findings over to them. But, at this stage, our primary goal is to fix the problems that we have to make sure that we get the medicines in the system and to get that out to the patients who need those medicines. So that’s our priority. Those other things, in terms of the findings and the institutions that we’ll be engaging with, we’ll do that simultaneously and ensure that whoever’s got to be held accountable, will be held accountable,” he said.
