Determinants of Medicines Wastage Across the Supply Chain in Hospitals Under the Addis Ababa City Administration Health Bureau
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Date
2022-08
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Medicines wastage happens when medicines are expired, damaged, or obsoleted and become unsafe for use. It burdens many health care institutions and increases the health care system costs. Despite studies indicating the existence of expired medicines in Ethiopia, there is limited objective evidences on its determinant factors as well as the extent and type of medicines wastage. Therefore the aim of this study was to identify the determinants of Medicines Wastage across the supply chain in hospitals under the Addis Ababa City Administration Health Bureau. The study employed a mixed of descriptive and explanatory study in the sampled hospitals from April 16 to May 15, 2022. In the study, both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were used. The qualitative and quantitative data was collected using self-administered questionnaires and data abstraction formats and analyzed using SPSS version 26.0. The results of the analysis demonstrate a positive and strong association between supply chain determinants and medicine wastage, with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.545 (r=0.545) and significance at a p-value of 0.00. Poor coordination and communication between key stakeholders, delivery of near expiry date medicines, presence of overstocked medication due to improper forecasting of need in the hospitals, poor procurement practice, the presence of the warehousing storage space problem, weak or absence of fully functional drug and therapeutic committee (DTC) and lack of accountability for stock-outs and wastage of medicines in the hospitals were identified as major determinant factors for medicines wastage. While all assessed health institutions received pharmaceuticals with a value of 193,279,074.17 Ethiopian Birr, there was a total of 9,339,542.58 Ethiopian Birr wasted medications, yielding a wastage rate of 4.83% within the time period in EFY 2012-2013. Knowing and adhering to the standard producer is critical to avoiding patient service interruptions, shortages and unavailability of essential medications, high healthcare costs and expensive medicine expiration. Therefore to reduce medicine wastage, hospitals should also improve information management, supply chain management and strengthening the Drug and Therapeutics Committee.
Key Words: Determinant Factors, Medicine wastage, Essential Medicine, public hospitals, Wastage Rate