Kampala — The last few weeks have been gratifying for the people at National Medical Stores (NMS). First, we delivered medicines to the two National Referral Hospitals - Mulago and Butabika - the first time in three years. Secondly, Parliament handed NMS a bigger mandate. Thirdly, the stores in Entebbe have been undergoing transformation.

Mulago and Butabika hospitals stopped buying drugs from NMS three years ago, reportedly because NMS lacked most of the drugs they needed. This was probably true, but that was then. So when Mulago recently sent in their order for supplies worth sh300m, we were eager to show that indeed this is a new NMS. We thus promptly delivered items worth sh180m, for a start. We could have supplied all the sh300m drugs at once, but Mulago had not sent in their requirements beforehand.

Instead of providing all the drugs, and leaving other health facilities without essential supplies, we chose to handle Mulago in phases since the order covered three months.

The delivery to Mulago followed a meeting between a team led by the hospital director, Dr Edward Dumba, and NMS managers on July 4 at NMS.

Dumba enumerated the reasons why they had stopped buying from NMS, but after touring the stores he left convinced that NMS had changed. Why is the delivery to Mulago significant to any reader or patient? For the first time Mulago got drugs labelled "Government of Uganda, Not for Sale" because NMS is the only supplier of embossed drugs.

Embossment, which followed a directive from President Museveni, has gone a long way in reducing pilferage of drugs from public health facilities onto the open market. Although theft has not ended, Ugandans can easily identify exceptions as evidenced by numerous press reports of people being arrested with these embossed drugs.

That drugs ordered by Mulago were available in our stores without prior warning shows that stock-outs at NMS are a thing of the past. Last year stock levels at NMS stood at 40%.

Today, 80% of items on the essential drugs list are stocked in appropriate quantities and this is projected at 100% by year-end. The remaining hurdle is procurement laws but NMS has proposed to PPDA to treat drugs as a special case and grant us some waivers so that we can ignore some procedures and get stocks in less than the six months it would otherwise take between advertising tenders and receiving drugs into our stores.

Therefore, concerned parties only need to rein in public health facilities to provide their procurement plans and orders on time, and also ensure that what NMS has delivered is not stolen.

The bigger mandate for NMS was given by the Parliament on August 31. It passed the 2009/10 budget with two major ramifications. It approved a vote for NMS on the national budget and also allocated sh63.2b to NMS compared to about sh13b we were able to supply in the 2007/8 financial year.

Previously, NMS did not have a vote on the national budget. NMS would supply drugs on credit and then send invoices to the Ministry of Health and other health facilities asking to be paid. Delays by the health ministry to release funds sometimes forced NMS to resort to commercial banks for loans with interest, which reduced the volume of drugs supplied to health facilities. With the vote, the Ministry of Finance will be sending the money directly to NMS. This means NMS can now pay suppliers promptly and these suppliers will be induced to reduce prices. This, in turn, would mean supplying more drugs to health facilities using the same amount of money.

Parliament also increased the ratio of drugs NMS is to supply. NMS has been supplying only 30% of drugs in public health centres.

The remaining 70% was being procured by district health officials using funds directly sent to them - yet shortages were always blamed on NMS. This time Parliament changed it to 70% for NMS and 30% for districts - courtesy of guidance from the social services committee headed by Rosemary Seninde and Chris Baryomunsi.

In short, beginning next month, NMS shall take on a bigger responsibility of handling most of the money for drugs to public health facilities, including Mulago and Butabika. The money will no longer go through middlemen who sometimes had to explain to MPs why it was diverted to foreign travel.

NMS will also take over (from MoH) the management of money allocated to Quality Chemical Industries Ltd for procurement of ARVs and anti-malarials. This is why the tour of the Luzira based plant by NMS management on September 4, 2009 was timely.

However, the vote and the bigger mandate come with new challenges. The volume of stock and work at NMS is more than doubling and we have fewer excuses for shortages.

It has to show that it can deliver. There are plans to introduce shifts in the stores department so that drugs are picked and packed day and night to be loaded on delivery trucks for prompt dispatch. Next month NMS will acquire two new delivery trucks while a new modern store, the largest in East and Central Africa, is nearing commissioning - thanks to support from the Danish government through DANIDA.

In addition, a new management information system and fast pick gravity racks have been installed, courtesy of USAID.

This will allow quicker and modern ways of receiving drugs into our stores, better management of the stocks, faster processing of orders from health facilities and quick delivery of drugs for patients attending government health facilities.

If all goes as planned, the principal beneficiary will be the patient.

The writer is the public relations officer National Medical Stores