Transcript
Papua New Guinea has been short of drugs and supplies for months.
Some hospitals were completely bare -- no medicine, bandages, gloves, IV fluid, anything.
The crisis has been pinned on multiple factors, including the fact the government's procurement tenders lapsed in December and weren't replaced.
But David Vorst, the deputy chief executive of Mt Hagen Hospital, one of the country's largest, says even with a tender, the hospital only ever received about 30 percent of what it asked for.
"This issue of drugs and medical consumables and also equipment has just been a chronic problem and very difficult for clinicians who, you know, they're at the front line having to deal with the public who have expectations about what they could receive when they come to hospital and those expectations, by and large, are real."
But while there are local factors are at play in PNG's crisis, such as the government not paying promised money, it shares symptoms with drug shortages across the region.
Fiji's hospitals are also facing a shortage. While not as serious as PNG, Fiji authorities have had to shuffle supplies around hospitals to cope until replenishments were shipped in.
A couple of weeks ago, a patient at Lautoka Hospital told the Fiji Times the only medicines being given were paracetamol and painkillers.
The acting director of Suva's Colonial Memorial Hospital, James Fong, says shortages are a fact of life.
"We're a fairly small country and we don't order as big a bulk as other bigger countries, so we do tend to struggle in getting reliable suppliers from big countries who find it far more profitable to be supplying people who ask for bigger amounts of drugs and consumables. This is not a problem that is only in Fiji, it's shared by almost all the small island countries."
In the past two years most Pacific countries have reported shortages at some point, including Vanuatu, the Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga and Kiribati.
Dr Fong says Fiji's looking at bringing in new measures for more consistent procurement, and in its budget last week, the government boosted funding for drugs and consumables to nearly $US16 million.
In PNG, with hospitals on the brink and doctors threatening to strike, the government there was also pushed to act.
After six months it approved new tenders and rushed in supplies. It also promised to release more funding, although this promise has been made before.
But this doesn't necessarily mean there won't be another shortage any time soon.
In a statement, the World Health Organisation's representative for the South Pacific, Corinne Capuano, says shortages are a chronic problem across the region, exacerbated by small populations, little money and geographic isolation.
"Despite substantial efforts to improve drug supply management in Pacific countries, drug stock-outs are still occurring. For Pacific countries, resource constraint and remote geographical locations may be an additional and unique factor that contributes to the shortages."
The statement goes on to say the WHO is helping countries update their drug-buying policies and regulations, fixing countries' inventory management and helping them plan well ahead for what they need.
But that still leaves the issue of geography, funding and finding a reliable supply.
As far as fixing these problem for good? Mt Hagen Hospital's David Vorst is sceptical.
"Some of us who have been around a little while become a little bit cynical about these comments. We'll believe it when we see it."
