For a second month running, cancer patients at the country\u2019s biggest referral hospital, Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH), are buying part of their medication as the hospital is running without one of the key drugs.
\nQECH has been without Dexamethasone, which is given as a starter to all cancer patients before they get chemotherapy.
\nWhen we first reported the shortage of Dexamethasone, in November, Ministry of Health spokesperson, Joshua Malango, blamed the shortage on Central Medical Stores Trust (CMST) which supplies drugs to all public hospitals.
\nMalango said the drug was out of stock at the Trust but claimed it would be restocked as soon as possible. But we have established that the key drug remains out of stock.
\nMalango said the CMST still does not have the drugs in stock.
\n\u201cThe Ministry of Health stopped selling the drugs and instead all public health facilities buy the drugs from Central Medical Stores Trust which does not have them as we speak. We are still engaging them because we know that the drug is important but there are other alternative medicines which our doctors are using,\u201d he said.
\nBut our sources at the hospital say the hospital does not have any alternatives for the drugs and that is why the cancer patients are being asked to buy the drug from private pharmacies if they are to get chemotherapy.
\nThe cancer patients, who we spoke to, confirmed being sent back without getting Chemotherapy if they fail to
\nbuy their own Dexamethasone from private pharmacies.
\n\u201cI came yesterday [Thursday] to get my medication but I was sent back. The doctors said they did not have one of the drugs.
\nI had to borrow money to buy my own medicines which was not the case in the past,\u201d she said.
\nDeputy Head of Cancer Unit at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Petani Mtonga, recently told Times that the hospital treat over 90 patients every day.
\nDexamethasone is also given to expectant mothers expected to give birth to premature babies. It helps the babies\u2019 lungs to mature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For a second month running, cancer patients at the country\u2019s biggest referral hospital, Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH), are buying part of their medication as the hospital is running without one of the key drugs. QECH has been without Dexamethasone, which is given as a starter to all cancer patients before they get chemotherapy. When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58350,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58345\/revisions\/58350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}