Contribution Of Direct Delivery On Availability Of Medicine And Medical Supplies In Health Facilities In Tanzania: A Case Of Dodoma Region

ABSTRACT

Direct delivery of medicines and medical supplies, was introduced in 2010 in the country following the directive of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MoHSW) to MSD. This was prompted by under-delivery of health products to health facilities, delays of delivery and poor clientele relationship between the health facilities and MSD. This study was therefore, put in place in order to investigate on the contribution of the direct delivery method on the availability of medicines and medical supplies in health facilities in Tanzania. The study specifically, intended to assess the contribution of direct delivery of medicines and medical supplies on its availabilities in health facilities in Dodoma, to explore the perceptions of health workers towards the usage of direct delivery method and to investigate on the challenges that faced the management of direct delivery method. The study employed mainly a qualitative methodology and adopted a descriptive case study design. A total of 100 participants drawn from health workers, MSD officers and DMOs were from Dodoma region were involved in this study. Data were collected using questionnaires and interviews and were mainly analyzed by using descriptive statistics and explanation building. It was found out that, direct delivery of medicines has helped to reduce the delay in delivery of medicines to health facilities, identifying and resolving issues like the missing and/or expiration of medicines. In addition to that, the method was found to have contributed into the element of transparency, in the management of medicines vii and medical supplies at health facilities level. With regards to the question of the perceptions of health workers towards the use of direct delivery method, findings suggested that, all the issues investigated were positively evaluated in connection to the application of the direct delivery method in comparison to the indirect delivery approach. Moreover, the study uncovered several challenges which negatively impacted proper management of the direct delivery method. These were mainly, poor infrastructure, un-reliable source of power supply to some health facilities, lack of qualified health personnel at health facilities and lack or limited storage space in the health facilities. It was recommended that, government takes necessary steps to ensure that distribution network infrastructure is improved in order to enable ease accessibility of the health facilities. Furthermore, it was also suggested that, government put in place alternative reliable source of power supply to those health facilities which lacked this resource. In addition to that, MSD management was advised to conduct customer satisfaction surveys in order to understand how their clients rated them so that, they could improve their services to the desired level. Finally, Health facilities were advised to expedite the process of properly filling in the R&R forms for submission to MSD to allow the timely supply of their requirements.